Harris Half Marathon

Saturday was the Harris Half Marathon and the final race of the Heb 3 series. After dodging last week's Barra half due to alarming weather reports and worry about what state I'd be in to go into a new work setting on Monday it was almost gratifying to hear all the Barra vomiting stories from those who braved it and were there. Also, the boat didn't come back from Barra on the Sunday so I wouldn't have made it to work which wouldn't have been a good start.

You can get enough vomiting stories though.
The weather report for THIS weekend was not looking so hot either but it was the more normal west coast forecast of rain and cold - nothing to miss a race for, so off we set. As it happened we seemed to get lucky with the weather. Friday night at Uig on Skye was dry and so windless our friends the midges came and joined us and cut short our chat with other Heb 3 regulars also camping over and catching the ferry in the morning.

Saturday dawned bright and sunny and pretty much remained so all day. Nice smooth crossing on the ferry.
We'd had a good break from half-marathoning since Benbecula and have put in some good training runs so we were both hopeful that we would run better and also feel better - we both felt pretty desperate at Benbecula. Amanda H. is also just coming in to a bit of good form and Richard is recovering swiftly now from his WHW race. The Porties were therefore in a quite optimistic, upbeat mood.

Julia and Andrew Henderson were also camping and Andrew was running - Julia's nursing an IT band injury and saving herself for the Tour of Fife later in the month.

I'd absolutely promised myself not to go off too fast this time as I am heartily sick of being overtaken from mile 8 onwards by everyone and their dog. As Bruce Walker of Troon Tortoises passed me in Stornoway and Benbecula at mile 9 and then went on to record a much better time than me I thought there was little sense in getting ahead of him at all. I trailed Bruce for the 1st 4 miles but then he unexpectedly pulled over to the side of the road and started vomiting. So I left him to it.

The hills seemed to have moved themselves around a bit since last time I'd run this course, which was a bit disconcerting, and the proper hills seemed to start at mile 5 although I could have sworn they started from 4 onwards. I'd been chasing down a tall woman in red for some time and seemed to gain on her every uphill so I thought I might as well put my cards on the table and cruise by her and see what her response was. She seemed to try to stay with me for a while and then fell off the back a bit, but then I could hear her talking to another female. This was a spur - thinking that if they're talking they're not trying hard enough, but I also really didn't want them to breeze past me chatting. I kept as much pressure on myself as I felt I could handle and kept moving up the hills.

Thinking back on it I don't think anyone passed me at all from there in the race, apart from Shona Morrison who I passed at 10 miles and who re-took me further down the road. I reeled in and passed maybe 6 people on the way up the hills. Lots of hill training at club, plus the Red Moss Revolution plus some runs out in the Pentlands with Peter seemed to be paying dividends.

Not much more to say about this. I didn't run a great time and have not seen the results yet so can't prove it but suspect I was further up the field than the previous Heb races this year. I ran the same time for all 3 races, which I couldn't have done if I'd tried. Within 40 seconds for all of them. It was nice to run feeling stronger and not end by feeling defeated.

The Heb 3 series has lost some of its sponsorship so there were fewer prizes than in previous years. I might have lucked 2nd or 3rd FV if the classifications had have gone down that far - again I won't know til I see the results, but I was content to be running better again. We've signed up for the Moray Marathon in less than a couple of months so all the latter part of the race I was telling myself the half marathon was good tempo training for that.

Peter ran strongly and came in 4th and was in a great mood picking up the 1st MV prize for Harris and also for the Heb 3 series. He's had a good battle throughout this year's Heb races with Andy McMahon and Colin Feechan and worked very hard to keep them both behind him this time. Amanda ran a stormer to come in under 1hr 30 mins and got an immense cup for 3rd lady. Richard ran strongly and is well on his way back to where he was pre WHW.

HBT put in a strong bid for dominance at the Hebs this year and nobody could really argue as they made off with most of the prizes. God punished them by giving them Fosters lager as a team prize for Harris. (The ladies got wine, I don't know what the HBT policy on wine is - only brown fortified wines?) Jim Bruce was kinder than God and gave them their beloved Brown Beers for their Heb 3 team prize.

There was the usual brilliant atmosphere at the Hebs and every year we know more people and there are more people to talk to endlessly about running, running, running. But the Heb 3 weekends are very tiring and we were thinking - well maybe next year we'll do something else...but then Shery Johnston says that maybe she'd be up for having a go at them next year, and then I start to think well maybe Amanda, Shery and me would make a reasonable ladies' team and maybe we should do it again next year.....

On Saturday night, after a beautiful rosy sunset, the forecast rain finally arrived and battered on the tent walls all night as we slept off the day's racing and a bit too much to drink in celebration.

No action photos yet. Photos stolen from Peter

Harris Half Marathon

Bit late with this one but we went straight from Skye to Aberdeenshire to scrape and paint my mum's window frames and are just back.

This was my 4th go at the hilly Harris half marathon. Its the final half marathon of the Heb 3 series where competitors need to complete 3 of a possible 5 Hebridean half marathons and who ever spends the least time at it wins. Of note is that there is a very generous team cash prize of £200 which has drawn a greedy Portobello contingent for 3 of the last 4 years.

I couldn't complete 3 of the Hebs this year due to work and weddings, but did Stornoway and Harris anyway. The effort it takes to get there, the courses themselves and the general pre and post race fun make these heb half marathons worth it and they have quite a loyal following so you see the same faces year after year.

We had a bit of an epic drive to the camp-site in Uig at the far end of Skye. We had to leave Edinburgh kind of late anyway due to not having time to get organised beforehand and perhaps some shilly-shallying so it seemed we would make it to camp by about 11pm which was later than we would have liked but we'd come to terms with it. Imagine our surprise then when we got to Sligachan, half-way across Skye and discovered the road was closed all night for on-going road work. We had to take a long diversion up the Dunvegan road and then 8 miles of very interesting single-track over the hills to Portree. At about the zenith of this diversion the car started to make a funny rubbing noise. "No please god no!" "Not now, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, with no mobile signal!" Our shiftless godless prayers were answered and the rubbing noise went back to whence it came. We finally drove into Uig Carpark after midnight and put the tent up as quietly as we could. Well I say we, - but I went to the toilet block to brush my teeth and when I got back Peter had pretty much put it up. Good man.

We both slept fine being knackered from a busy week and a long drive.
In the morning the sun baked us out of our tent before our alarms had had a chance to go off.

Up already were a possie of Helensburghs. A bit later on we were to see Graeme Jervis who was formerly of Forres Harriers but has been poached by the HBTs. Also Hamish MacDonald who we met at the Everest Marathon but we often see at different races in Scotland. On the ferry to Tarbert we met more familiar folk. Ivor Normand of HBT (His rule is, he tells me "You cannae miss Harris!" and this was his 9th consecutive Harris half.) Davie Hearn who oscillates between Stornoway and HBT (the dark side) was in his usual jolly form. From a distance we say a fit looking Dick Wall who is clearly in serious training. He went for a bike ride after the race!

The day unfolded in the usual laid-back island way. Registration and then a bus-ride down the island to the start. There is a pee stop about a mile from the start as the people who live at the actual start are sick of people peeing in the gardens and on the road where they live.

At maybe 1.20pm we were set off by a local policeman (who looked barely out his teens). He gave a few instructions, to be careful etc. and asked if there were any questions. "Why do we do this?" asked a wag from the throng of runners. "Because you are all mental." was the quick response. Without further ceremony we were off.

It was hot and there was a head-wind and after the first four miles the really serious hills begin. I swapped places with Louise Provan a few times early on, finding I was going past people on the downhills. Not so later on... It was quickly apparent that it would not be a day for fast times so I nudged the Garmin onto heart rate so I couldn't start worrying about my pace. I think this was a good strategy. I kept going as steady as I could, without red-lining, hoping to have something left for the mostly downhill (though never very fast) last 5 miles. I didn't manage to hang onto Louise and I slipped back a bit but not drastically and did manage to pick it up once the long uphill from mile 4 to mile 8 was behind me. Just before the last mile I turned around and saw a woman in a pink t-shirt not far behind. Hell's teeth! I would have to try to pick up my pace! I did this by pulling faces and making funny noises and thankfully it worked and I managed to keep ahead. I bowled into the finish area grimacing and near-blinded by the effort and the heat.

One tiny moan I have is that I think they stiffed me for 3rd lady vet. The full results aren't up yet but I beat the official 3rd lady vet's time. This also happened to me in 2007 when they gave my prize to Susan Lennon. I can see it fully from a race organisers point of view - nothing would put you off runners quicker - a bunch of moany whingers. But I also can see it from my point of view and quite frankly I wanted my prizey!

Anyway, the post-race stuff was great. We had a nice meal in the Harris Hotel with the Helensburghs. I think I was drinking Clansmans (should that be Clansmen) and then on the boat we fell in with the HBTs who insisted that Peter fill his 1st MV tankard with the HBT ladies' team prize winning wine and that we all drink. We had 2 of the 3 HBT ladies' bottles of wine and then some other stuff, peut-etre some Port and some beer and then at the pub at the end of the pier in Uig we had some beer and whisky and gave Graeme Jervis some rousing support for his pool-playing until the pub was shut and we were asked to leave. Rolled into our tent at 1am and were surprisingly good the next day considering...