Inverness HM – Birthday Run – 2 new PBs

8th of March is Tom’s birthday and this one was special! He was about to enter the M45 age group.

So we decided to pick a nice race that we could both run on the day and maybe, maybe he could get a good position in his new age group. Well I was hoping for a win to be honest. And to get the only slight disappointment of the weekend out of the way, this was not to be. Instead he came 2nd in his new M45 group as “his” prize was snatched up by someone else. But not to worry, we both came home with new PBs and Thomas also with a few other presents! :-)

We picked Inverness as we quite like it up there and would be able to stay in a friend’s flat until Monday. So after a leisurely drive up north and a stop in the as usual overcrowded Mountain Café in Aviemore, we found out that the race route actually passed the flat we were staying in. So we drove along the route a bit and realized that this was NOT a flat race at all. In fact there were quite a few uphills in admittedly nice surroundings. Well, as this was just a run out of my general training and my actual 10-week EDI Marathon training plan has not even started yet, I was initially just hoping to get under 2hours. My PB was 1:55:29 from Glasgow last year. Seeing the route I thought that might be slightly difficult.

I woke up the next morning to snow showers! Horizontal snow and sleet showers in fact. We set off to the sports centre to register fairly early due to announced road closures. I was getting cold just by waiting in the sports hall and the closer it got to the starting time people put layers upon layers, some even pinned their numbers to their goretex jackets! Nobody really wanted to leave the hall but eventually the organizers threw us out to get the race started. For me leaving that sports hall was probably the toughest bit. I would have never even contemplated going for a run in this weather and here I was just in a thin layer trying to run a HM! “Character building” as the newspaper stated today and I think I have done well just by going to the start.

Thomas had put “no pressure at all” on me by telling me to “get him a PB for his birthday”! And I should take risks and start fast as long as it was flat so I would not lose too much time on the uphills! Well, I set off just being glad to get moving and felt surprisingly fine. I had a few mile splits in my head, under 9min/m to stay under 2hrs, 8:45 to get near to 1:55 and 8:23 to get under 1:50. Arriving at the first mile marker my watch showed 8:00 and I was shocked. That was way too fast. Crossing the bridge and turning against the strong headwind soon sorted this out and the next mile was somewhere near 8:30, much better I thought, just try to keep it up on the flat stretches. I unfortunately don’t have the exact splits as in the end my hands were so cold that I could not operate my watch properly and somehow pressed a few buttons and the data got lost. I just know that when the first uphill stretch started I had a mile with 9:11 that really messed up the time and another one with 9min. I did also have a lot of fast ones between 8:15 and 8:30 and when I reached the point where I knew it was downhill or flat from now on after mile 9 I knew I could beat my PB. I even briefly dreamt of getting under 1:50 reaching mile 12 near 1:42/1:43 but that proved impossible with again strong headwinds on the last mile and by then icy cold hands. I had taken off my gloves after mile2 but by now was unable to get them back on as my fingers were useless. I overtook a few runners/walkers and tried to stick with one guy, but the way to the finish did stretch quite a bit.
In the end I just thought keep running and try not to collapse before the finish and eventually crossed the line in a chip time of 1:51:39! 3min 50sec of my previous time! And 21st in my age group (M40)! Incredible! Thomas took 30sec of his PB finishing in 1:18:31 in 16th position overall and 2nd M45. So well done to him and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

We went out for a nice meal in the evening and then drove back via the east side of Loch Ness towards Fort Augustus this morning checking out the Loch Ness Marathon route and onwards to Fort William. Now while this is a spectacularly scenic route, this one is really hilly! I guess compared to this even the Inverness HM route seems “flat” in the end. Not a marathon that I will enter in a hurry!