A mixed terrain race, it contains two smallish hills en route, a road section down the east coast, a lot of machair with wonderful summer flowers and a splashy beach crossing to keep you nice and salty.
There was a decent turnout (although I don’t know how many runners there were, maybe 50 or 60? with a good representation from Stornoway Running and Athletics Club). There is also the option to walk the course, with walkers starting half an hour earlier. Looking at the SIEntries the day before, there were only 7 runners signed up… how great to be able to just turn up on the day and enter, as in the old days!
Highlights for me were the abundance of flowers on the machair and the long splashy crossing of Loch Bhuirgh, especially knowing there were only 3km left to the finish. They have to set the race time to allow for a low tide so that it’s just splishy splashy and not swimmy swimmy.
Signs were clear and numerous, there was only one marshall who probably didn’t need to be there, and the results were done quickly. Every participant had already been given a medal and a Mars Bar as well as cups of water and fresh orange quarters (reminding me of school hockey match half-times!)
Then, 4 choices of soup, half a dozen choices of filled rolls plus tea or coffee , and a timely prize giving, given that many runners, including ourselves, needed to catch the next ferry back. For us this was a 20 min walk back along the singletrack road in an utterly drenching rain – thank goodness for the warmth of Calmac’s lounge. Luckily the race weather was very kind to us, with a mainly bright if breezy afternoon. And, as well as the fun of doing a new-for-me scenic race, I came away with a trophy for 1st over-40 female… something to do with me being faster than the girl who got 1st over-50. Given that I didn’t start racing until I was 50, I think that may be a first!!
Izzie Burnett