HOW TO…
… eat outside in Scotland in May when it’s bucketing and there’s no tables inside:
1 golf umbrella.
2 wallets stuffed into crack in table to create support struts.
1 golf umbrella cover wrapped round base to increase size and stability.
Easy!
Have you ever run a half marathon backwards? Or any race backwards?
And by backwards I mean running the route in reverse – not running backwards yourself, looking over your shoulder and trying not to run into an oncoming car.
I have. The last time I was here.
For some reason, when we arrived at registration at Kinross in Fife, the organisers didn’t have my entry.
(I cannot comment on whether this may have something to do with me get my entry wrong in the first place and maybe not, you know, actually, kind of, maybe… entering. Though I swear I thought I had entered at the time.)
Since we were there and ready to start we thought we’d run the race anyway. But, because it wouldn’t be fair to join a race without an entry, we thought we run the route in reverse.
And everything was fine. The first few miles were quiet, the middle miles saw a flood of runners approach us, and the last few miles saw…. horrendous rain. Rain so bad that we thought it best to take a shortcut, leave the road and cut across a field to take a trail to Kinross.
Only one problem.
The trail didn’t go to Kinross.
It didn’t go anywhere. It stopped beside Loch Leven.
So, we ran across another field.
A cow got mad.
We ran back.
We got lost.
We eventually ended up back at the road we’d left. Wet. Tired. No further forward.
We ran to the finish/start and checked our mileage – 15 miles, for a 13 mile half marathon ran in reverse.
There’s clearly a lesson here about always checking your entry before going to the start of a race. Either that or always carry a compass if you want to take a short cut.
That was around five years ago. The Caledonian Etape and Loch Leven Half Marathon moved to the same weekend and it became impossible to enter both (or not enter even).
This year the Etape has changed weekends, moved back a week and we were free to run the Loch Leven Half Marathon again.
It’s one of my favourite races. It has great views of the loch and the surrounding hills. It has some nice long descents and only a couple of longer climbs. Every few miles the view changes, starting in an industrial estate in Kinross, moving through fields, then Loch Leven, moving closer to the hills, climbing through Scotlandwell before finishing with farms, fields, rolling roads and a final couple of miles along a track back to Kinross.
It’s a great race and I’d definitely reccomend it – but I might only be saying that because I beat Iain.
I saw he was struggling. A few grimaces here and there. An inability to keep up when I tried to run faster. But I waited until mile 9 before seeing if it was just a faint.
It wasn’t. When I started to run faster, he didn’t try to keep up. I was able to run home without any competition for the final few miles, drawing the Todd Championship level with three victories each.
My only complaint was a warning at the start of the race. The marshall warned everyone not to listen to headphones: “This race is sanctioned by Scottish athletics and anyone wearing headphones may be withdrawn from the race.”
I like listening to headphones when I run, usually Podcasts, occasionally music, sometimes the radio.
I can understand that organisers want to keep runners safe. But banning headphones seems over the top. Why not just say that runners with headphones run at their own risk?
Which isn’t much, given that statistics showed that “SERIOUS ACCIDENTS TRIPLE WHEN WEARING HEADPHONES”, as one headline put it. Which does indeed sound serious, but it only involves 47 accidents a year in the United States, up from 16, eight years earlier.
Which is not to belittle the 47 accidents which occurred, but merely to point out that half of the accidents involved people struck be a train at railway stations (not somewhere you normally go for a run) and perhaps studies like these are not appropriate when judging people running on roads and trying really, really hard not be hit, especially if they’re running backwards!
Saying that, if I get hit by a car tomorrow while out for a run while listening to ‘My Dad Wrote A Porno’, please delete this post. I really, really don’t want to die an ironic death.
Or at least change my Podcast to ‘Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History’ so at least people think I was listening to something a little bit more high-brow! 🙂
Current Todd Championship Standing
Me: 3
Iain: 3
“When’s the worst time to get a puncture – the start or end of a race?”
We were about five miles from the finish of Bealach Beag – a 45 mile race around Applecross and over the UK’s highest road: Bealach Na Ba.
We’d just passed a rider changing a tyre at the side of the road.
“If you get a puncture at the start then that’s really annoying as you’ve just started and you have to stop. But, if you get a puncture at the end, you’re thinking that you don’t have long to go when, suddenly, you’ve got to wait and change your tyre.”
We didn’t answer the questions. We came to a short hill, a fast descent and sudden climb. I’d read the course profile and knew that the last two miles were downhill. I thought if I made a break for it now then Iain wouldn’t keep up.
I was right.
I was first over the hill. I kept going as fast as I could for two miles, looked back and knew he wasn’t in sight.
It was an easy victory.
Until I had to wait at the finish line.
And wait.
And wait some more.
Eventually, 20 minutes later, far, far longer than he should have been, Iain cycles into Sheildag.
“I got a puncture just after you left!”
He tried to claim that meant my victory was void, that professionals who get a mechanical in the last stage of a race are given the same time as the winner.
I pointed out that I was the first to climb Bealach Na Ba – a six mile, 626m climb, that takes you from sea level to mountain top and back down again. Some parts have a gradient of 20% – which is almost like doing a wheely without your bike leaving the ground!
I also pointed out that I was the first round Applecross and had waited for him.
But still he insisted he was given the same time.
So, I said: “That’s okay, you can have the same time – but you don’t see Chris Froome handing over the yellow jersey! It’s the same time not the same place! I’m still the winner!”
Same time then, but, a much needed victory in the Todd Championship to claw it back to 3 – 2 to Iain!
I think it’s time to get a new water bottle…
The Dirty Reiver 130 (80 miles) is a gravel race along the access roads that service the vast areas of forest covering the border of Scotland and England.
A gravel race is basically an off-road race and, as such, you don’t want to use a road bike.
The clue’s in the name: Road bike for…. roads. Off-road bike for… going off the road.
It should have been obvious but, oh no, not me, I knew better. Or worse, as it turned out…
The Dirty Reiver started last year and it’s based at Keilder Castle in Northumberland, an an area of the country that I, and it turned out, the mobile network, have never been.
Keilder is home to Europe’s largest man-made lake, though why there’s a lake in the middle of Northumberland is not something that’s mentioned in any of the leaflets I checked at the castle. It’s certainly not there because it’s easy to get to because Keilder is in the middle of a large moor crossed by single track roads then large forests crossed by slow winding b-roads.
It’s beautiful but it’s the kind of beauty that demands patience – and an ability to ignore the tractor blocking the way in front of you.
We drove down on Friday and registered on Friday night, though you can register before the race too. We stayed in the town of Bellingham, which was on 30 minutes from the start, though an early start of 5:40 was needed as the race started at 7am.
Normally, bike races start early to avoid traffic – so I wasn’t sure why a race with no traffic needed to start so early. But, I also thought I could use a road bike, and I wasn’t any better at predicting timings.
“Maybe six hours?” I said to Iain.
Nowhere close.
Race day had ideal weather. Sunny-ish. Not too warm. A very light breeze and, as it had been dry all week, the trail was dusty rather than muddy.
It was cold to start but nothing that an emergency use of the Glasgow Tri Club buff couldn’t fix, after I realised that I’d forgotten to bring gloves.
Did I tell you how well prepared I was for this race…?
The race started in waves of around 20-25 bikes with a sharp drop from the castle then straight into the forest. The first couple of miles were… okayish. A steady climb. A dirt track then…
Ouch!
The first descent.
Crickey!
Another stone.
Blimey!
And another.
Jings!
And another.
And I’d only gone one metre.
100 metres of a descent later and I feel like Godzilla has kicked me in the baws then grabbed my arms, shaken me about, and punched me in the back.
And only another 78 miles to go.
It was horrendous. Every bump, stone, rock and pepple went straight through my bike and into me. I had to pull on my brakes through any descent just to keep some control.
I was going slower downhill than I was going uphill.
It was HORRIBLE.
And I knew then that my six hour estimate was completely wrong.
The first hour followed a pattern of grinding up a hill, with slate and pebbles sliding away beneath my wheels, to trying to go down hills as slowly as possible so as not to go over my handlebars or become an involuntary eunuch.
I hated every minute of it.
And, to make things worse, Iain was on a mountain bike and making the whole thing look easy as, every hill, he was picked up by Godzilla and given a soothing massage through the magic of suspension and fat tyres.
Not that I didn’t have the right tyres. The organisers had recommended 33 inch tyres as a minimum and that’s what I had. But I needed more than the minimum, I needed big knobbly tyres and shock absorbers. Instead I got BATTERED.
The route itself was spectacular with the scenery changing every 10 miles as you go through forest, moors, farmland, dirt track, walking trails and, thankfully, blessedly, a five mile stretch of smooth, smooth tarmac.
There’s even a river crossing.
But it was tough and my lack of a ‘granny gear’ meant every hill was a challenge and my lack of springs in my bum meant I’ll never sit down again.
After eight hours we finally got back to Keilder castle. I had to:
I’m glad I took part. I now know what it’s like to race a gravel race and to race off-road but I don’t think I’ll be signing up for another anytime soon. Not without a mountain bike – and not without a doctor’s note that I can still father children.
Oh, my poor baws!
Home to the Western Isles for Easter and a chance to join the Hebridean Triathlon Club’s open water swim on Saturday morning. I say club but, as it’s only just started, it’s mostly a nice man called Colin who was happy for us to join him on his weekly swim at Coll beach.
He was prepared. He had an orange buoy to help with sighting, emergencies and generally keeping safe in the water. We had wetsuits and serious doubts we’d last more than five minutes in the water.
It was FREEZING!
“Six and half degrees,” said Colin.
And then 30 second later.
“Good news, it’s now seven!”
I couldn’t feel my feet. I’d not worn swim socks as I find them uncomfortable. They’re like two heavy bags strapped to your feet.
Not that I knew if I had feet. I couldn’t feel anything below my knees as I waded in.
“Dip your face in,” said Iain.
I did.
Like The Weeknd, I couldn’t feel my face.
So, that’s what that song is about. It’s not about cocaine at all, it’s about open water swimming.
“I can’t feel my face when I’m with you!”
I tried swimming breaststroke for 10 minutes keeping my head carefully out of the water. Then, once I’d acclimatised, I tried some freestyle. (Or free(zing)style.)
I couldn’t feel my ears.
I was noticing a pattern.
Cold water is, well, cold.
But the sun was out. The swimming was good and it was great to be swimming again in more extreme conditions than a heated pool.
Going to the toilet is something we tend to do privately. It’s our own we world of wee where we can sit and think and generally take a break from the world for a moment of two.
But not runners and triathletes. Oh no, not us. We have to turn the toilet break into something competitive. It becomes a race and we’re no longer alone, we might not know it, but we’re under scrutiny.
Next time you’re at a race think about what you do at the start. You probably stretch, you probably get changed, you probably realise you forgot some drawing pins to hold up your number and you try and find some at registration – and you go to the toilet.
Sometimes, that’ll be a row of portaloos. At other times, a toilet in the gym or school or, as at the Alloa half marathon, the local Asda.
You’ve got to go before you go and it doesn’t matter where because you don’t want to Radcliffe it in the middle of a race.
(If you don’t want to know what a Radcliffe is then don’t Google Paula Radcliffe and the 2005 London marathon. Eeuugghh!).
But when you go before you go you always find that everyone else has had the same idea. There’s a queue. A long queue – and that’s when it gets competitive.
Frankly, some people take too long. They know there’s a queue, they’ve been in it themselves for the last 10 minutes, yet, when it gets to the bog they don’t just pee and go. They take their time. They relax. They forget that everyone else is waiting – and listening!
Because you can’t help but listen. You want to hear the rustle of short or trousers being pulled up. The bang of a toilet roll being torn. The scraping back of a the lock so that you can then take your turn as….
… you realise everyone is listening to you. They’re desperate. They’ve been waiting for ages, crossed legged, hopping foot to foot and they just want to hear you tinkle, stand up, unlock and leave.
So, you want to be the fastest. You want to be someone who’ll walk out almost as soon as they walked in. You want the imagined high fives (after you’ve washed your hands, of course) as you pass back along the queue as everyone respects the fact you didn’t keep them waiting. You were in an out. A toilet god. The Uisean Bolt of urination.
Going to the toilet is no longer something we do privately. It’s a competition and you want to win!
There should be gold medals, their really should.
Every six months or so I order new energy gels. I have to order them from the internet as I like ZipVit gels and you can’t buy them in any shops, or at least the shops I know, or at least the shops I know within five minutes of the house. The internet has reduced the need to search any further!
Today, my latest supply of banana gel ZipVit’s arrived – and they came with a message on the front of the box. An unexpected message. It said:
Now, while I’m all for manufacturers telling you that they took care packing their products, they really shouldn’t need to tell you that. It should be a basic requirement of delivering anything that you didn’t just throw everything into a box higgledy piggledy before mashing it down, throwing it as hard as you could against a brick wall before stamp on it to make sure the lid closed. That’s Royal Mail’s job. The manufacturer should be sending everything packed carefully.
So, it was nice that they’d taken the time to highlight this as an important step. Unnecessary, but nice.
What I do have issue with, what I really don’t believe, it’s that “Sam” had anything to do with it,
Maybe, I’m wrong. Maybe the ZipVit warehouse is filled with good looking women taking an almost unhealthy interest in packing energy gels boxes in brown delivery boxes to fat guys on bikes. Maybe she placed this sticker here with her own fair hand, a fair hand shared with the hundred other beautiful women of the ZipVit shop floor all desperate to provide MAMIL’s with much needed banana tasting energy boosts.
Perhaps Zipvit is at the cutting edge of female empowerment in the warehouse packing industry. Maybe they sponsor deprived woman from inner city communities, train them and teach them and school them in the ways of packing boxes.
Or perhaps Sam is a lone trailblazer in a male dominated industry where to handle a package you need to, well, be able to handle your own package.
Maybe Sam is the Emily Pankhurst of ZipVit box packers? Maybe she’s a feminist icon in waiting? Maybe just maybe Sam is real.
Or maybe, almost certainly, it was packed by Dave from Rotherham.
Dave who farts on the boxes and scratches his bum.
That Dave.
Not Sam.
Dave.
I hate you, Dave!
You lied to me, Sam!
And you didn’t even pack it carefully – one of the corners was squashed!
Can you buy speed?
If your name’s Jarvis Cocker and you sing that you’re ‘Sorted For E’s and Whizz’ then… yes…. yes, you can.
But, if your looking for speed and not a criminal conviction for class-A narcotics, speed can be bought legally. A race bike will be faster than a BMX. A pair of trainers will be faster than welly boots. Everything you wear or use can help you go faster.
Take bikes. Every bike is different. Even if you just look at race bikes you still get bikes which are better for climbing, better for sprinting, better for comfort or better for keeping your bum dry when it’s wet. (I may have made that last catergory up, but, if it’s not a thing then Specialised or Trek should definitely make it happen. Who wants to go faster when it’s raining? You just want a dry bum!).
The Stirling Duathlon was our chance to test whether different bikes could make a difference when racing. I was using my TT bike and Iain was using an aero bike, which is the technical name for a smaller less comfy bike sold to big men on the basis they’re sore back will make them think they’re cycling harder.
A TT bike on the other hand is the technical name for a smaller less comfy bike sold to big men on the basis they’re sore back will make them think they’re cycling harder but, and this this crucial bit, they also look cooler than a normal bike because you’ve got handlebars shaped like a unicorn.
The race was on. Well, I say on, but for five minutes I kept pace with Iain before deciding to try an early break to see if he could keep up or if he’d fall away.
After five minutes I looked back and he was nowhere to be seen.
I then spent the rest of bike leg trying to go as fast as I could to make sure he didn’t catch me on the line.
Now some people (Iain) might say that I’d merely bought my speed by buying a different (faster and cooler looking) bike. But I like to think I got my speed the old fashioned way – no, not in a Lance Armstrong blood bag delivered by motorcycle courier – but through hard word, dedication, sheer grit and effective training.
Also, I had a pointy aero helmet. And it looked really, really cool. 🙂
Good news and bad news from Billy Bilsland’s crack team of bike mechanics and life support unit. The bad news is that my race bike is gubbed. The good news is that my frame had a six year warranty I knew nothing about and the manufacturer will replace it for free. Woo hoo (tinged with sadness)!
I say sadness because while I’m glad I don’t have to buy a new bike I am sad to see my old bike go – though not completely. The wheels, handlebars, seat and components will be stripped and swapped to the new frame, Â which sounds look a good idea – but then I start thinking it’s the bike equivalent of swapping one girl for her younger sister and then telling her to wear her older sister’s clothes before you take her for a ride.
It’ll be strange, I think, to see my new/old bike. It’ll be the same bike, the same model, but also not the same. Will it be an identical twin and I won’t notice the difference? Or will it be Danny Devito’s twin to Arnold Schwarzenegger? I’ll find out this week as I should get a call any day to tell me it’s ready to collect.
Twin brothers swimming, cycling and running in Scotland 