There are many quirks of nature that seem magical. For example, the moon is exactly the size of the sun so that a total solar eclipse occurs with the moon completely blocking the sun despite them being millions of mils apart. Proportionally, when seen from the earth, they are the same size.
And the Isle of Cumbrae is exactly 10 miles long. It’s not 9.9 (despite my watch showing that, I just made a mistake with pressing start at the start line), it’s not 10.2 miles. It’s exactly 10 miles. That’s pretty magical – and perfect for a round the island round race. The only thing that would make it better is if it was 13.2 miles long and exactly the length of a half marathon. Has anyone ever measured the Isle of Mull?
The race starts at 2pm to allow time to get to it from Glasgow. To get there, you need to catch a ferry from Largs (every 20 minutes) and a bus from the pier on Cumbrae (whenever the bus arrives as the timetable didn’t seem to mean anything).
The only annoying thing about a 2pm start is working out when to eat in advance. I had breakfast and then a small snack at 10:30. And then, after the race, a fifteen course banquet because I was starving. But, for the race itself, I felt fine and just had a coupe of energy gels with me, just in case.
The race starts in Millport and proceeds anti-clockwise around the island. At the start, a man in a traffic cone costume limbered up. Within a minute of the race starting he was already ahead of us. By the end, he finished well before us. Iain asked for a photo. I wanted to ask if he was going to sit on a statute next.
It was a cool, dry (apart from a couple of small drops of the lightest rain in the first mile) and windy day. The first half of the race had the wind behind us, the second half was more of struggle as it pushed against us. But it was decent conditions for running with good views across to Largs and Fairlie on one side, and Bute and Argyll on the other.
The only strange thing about the race was the changing facilities: the town hall. There were separate male and female facilities (as you’d expect), but the male facilities had two little old ladies service water and rich tea biscuits. Were we expected to get changed in front of them? Did they volunteer for this?
“Would you like to man a water station?”
“Why yes, dearie, that would be nice. Can Nora join me and we can have a wee natter too?”
“Of course. And how do you feel about 100 male dongs?”
The race was well organised with two water stops on the course (no nudity required) and detailed instructions in advance to help with getting to the island on time for the start.
As for Kenny Philips, he was an amateur runner and race photographer. I couldn’t find his connection to Millport, though he seemed to be active on the west coast.
Leave a comment