1st – 2nd – Post race and return home

I had eyed a steak restaurant close to the hotel for dinner, and it was only possible to get a table for 1730 unless I wanted to wait until 2100 so obviously I went for an early dinner. It has positive reviews so I had high hopes, though I ended up disappointed. Bland risotto, tasty but not particularly tender steak, a pepper sauce that barely tasted of anything, so-so fries but a delicious dessert. The bread & butter and wine was good, though. So that was a great finish to an otherwise excellent day.

Relaxing the rest of the night followed by a good night’s sleep I grabbed myself a full breakfast before checking out and spent some time walking around before heading towards the airport. On the way to the train station I managed to grab some fish & chips before getting on the train and getting to the airport where checking in went smooth. I sat down in probably the smallest lounge ever at tarmac level (though I ended up seeing more rainbows than planes) before boarding on my flight to Amsterdam. Getting through the large airport in an hour was a bit stressful, having to go through security didn’t make it faster, but I finally made it to my next gate – and in time. And then it turned out my connecting flight was almost half an hour delayed. Oh, well.

How I feel about marathons.

Last leg went without a hitch and I was soon back in Denmark. Unfortunately due to the delay I missed my train connection so instead of getting home around midnight I was home around 0115. Bummer.

The view from the lounge at Inverness airport.

Saw more rainbows than planes.

Despite Inverness not being that interesting and getting home later than expected, I really enjoyed this trip. Might have something to do with me having a very good marathon. But that’s just guesswork.

Full album can be seen here.

1st of October – Loch Ness Marathon

The marathon set off at 1000, but as the start is outside Inverness busses had been acquired to get us all out there. And at around 0750 a long convoy of busses were on their way all the way down the western side of Loch Ness, turned along the south point and ended up in nowhere on some very small roads where we all disembarked an hour after departure. It was quite impressive looking around and seeing the long line of busses all around on some otherwise very small roads, most of them not paved. Reaching the main road – and main is meant as the largest there, maybe 4-5 meters wide at best – you started towards the starting area further down the road. Along the way the road was lined with portapotties, equipment/crew vehicles, more portapotties and baggage trucks. After this just a long empty space on the road until you reached the starting line. And all around us was beautiful views of Scottish highland. And here all the runners huddled together in a chilly – but not uncomfortably so – morning with fair weather waiting for the start.

A view of the landscape from the starting area.

And at 1000 we were off.

Until Dores the run was mostly following a road cutting through forest lining Loch Ness limiting our views. We had the entire road for ourselves – 1-1½ lanes paved road winding through the landscape while descending down towards the water level. Around Dores, at around 25-ish km, the landscape opened up all around us giving us views out over the loch, and the road widened to a more commonly used 2-lane road where we were limited to the left side while cars could drive on the other side. All this meant that all traffic was blocked for the first part and after Dores only southbound driving was possible, thus the houses we passed in the beginning were effectively prevented from going anywhere until the afternoon when they’d open up the road again.

Photo taken by Marathon Photo.

The weather was nice  running weather. The sun was mostly covered behind clouds in the beginning, and not until we had gotten warmed up we got a bit of a drizzle before staying dry for the rest of the run. When the sun came out it could have gotten quite warm but running among trees we were in the shade preventing heating up too much. Coming out in the open at that point the sun was out but mostly in our backs.

Photo taken by Marathon Photo.

The course wasn’t the easiest. The first 16-ish km it was mostly downhill from 310m to 20m, with a short steep uphill section midway. From 16 to 28km it was mostly flat – relative to the beginning. It was constantly gradually undulating but it wasn’t too bad in spite of it. The following 4km we had a gentle 100m ascent. It wasn’t particularly steep, especially compared to the start, but it just kept going. That section sucked a lot of energy and the following descent wasn’t steep enough to actually being felt like a descent equivalent of the ascent. 

The face of someone seeing the finish line just across the river but realizing there is still app. 2km left.

Photo taken by Marathon Photo.

Reaching Inverness quite a few people had come out to support us along the way – a big difference compared to the course until then. While there were a few out around Dores before then it was mainly only runners out due to the conditions. Reaching River Ness with less than 2km to go you could hear and see the finishing area on the other side of the river which was enormously frustrating knowing you still had a bit to go despite the finish was just over there.

A few 100 meters to the finish line, seeing a new PR on the horizon and still feeling fine (relatively).

Photo taken by Marathon Photo.

Crossing the finishing line and picking up my goodie pack and bag I waited for a bit to meet with a friend who was also running, this being her first marathon. Crossing the finishing line she was tired but obviously very happy doing it and completing. It was a quick hello/congratulations/ goodbye as she was meeting with family who was waiting for her – and that meant I could get back to my hotel to get a what felt like a well-deserved shower and rest. Feeling quite uncomfortable walking around in the sun, tired, worn out and severely dehydrated, a hotel room seemed very attractive at that point. 

Photo taken by Marathon Photo.

The probably funniest part was actually on the way back to the hotel. At the intersection where we were running along the river and had to make a turn to cross the bridge to the final stretch towards the finish there was a restaurant/bar. Outside this was a line of already finished runners, each with a beer in hand and very vigorously cheering runners along. The runners passing by were ones who would complete in 5:15 and later and many of them really needed that final cheering on. And when a runner came walking the onlookers would loudly chant “Run! Run! Run!” which energized them and had them back running, resulting in (even louder) cheers from them. It was a fantastic scene.

The best cheering to be found on the course.

My goal for the run – like with any other marathon I run – was to finish in less than 4 hours. With the course profile being what it is I considered it being a real possibility of not reaching my goal, but as usual I approached the run completely ignoring that fact. My PR is 3:55:34 from my virtual Boston marathon back in September 2020. Or – to be more correct: My PR was 3:55:34 from my virtual Boston marathon back in September 2020. Because in spite of the plenty of uphill I managed to complete this marathon in the official time 3:52:53, an improvement of 2:41. I honestly didn’t expect such a result, but apparently the downhill for the first 16km were nice to me. 

According to results, 3555 people were signed up and 3504 finished. I finished 749 overall (top 21,38%), 638 out of 2172 men (top 29,37%) and 184 out of 554 men 40-49 (33,21%). I crossed the halfway point at 1:49:52, probably the best time I have had for the first half of a marathon (not to be confused by my best half marathon time). In the second half I dropped 58 places – no surprise there due to the lack of lots of downhill and the long uphill stretch. Compared to the rest on the result page (50 results per page, i.e. 701-750) more than half jumped or dropped a 3-digit amount of places on the second half. 

The average time for the first and second half of the run for M40 and men was 1:58:46 and 2:27:04, and 2:00:43 and 2:29:21, respectively. The last person crossing the finish line did it in 8:50:25 but that was both gun and chip time, so I assume something went wrong there. The second to last ran the distance in 8:40:08. The fastest did it in 2:22:04 and fastest woman did it in 2:43:45.

All that taken into consideration I am very happy with the result. Of course, nobody wants to drop positions and I clearly did that on the second half, but considering the race conditions and the fact that I got a new PR I can’t really find anything to complain about. It was, overall, a very nice run.

29th – 30th of September – Visiting Nessie

Going through security my carry-on went through a new fancy machine that didn’t require you to remove anything from your bags – not even fluids. For the first time in a long time my bag got flagged, though; energy gel, basically fluids in small bags, understandably looked suspicious. The employee turned out to be an avid runner and with no one waiting after me we bonded over that for a few minutes before I was let go.

Getting to Inverness required a layover and I had mine in Amsterdam. My connecting flight ended up being an hour late which was annoying but on the other hand it resulted in a perfect connection with the train departing from the airport to Inverness. Though had I known how long a walk it was getting to the train station I would have been much less relaxed on the flight.

It was a short walk from the station to the hotel and I was soon checked in and settled in. It had gotten dark at that point but I ended up going for a short walk to get a feel for the area. It turns out that the hotel is just across the River Ness from the finishing area (the course passes the hotel with app. 1½ km left after which you cross a bridge over the river and end up running in the opposite direction to the finish line) and it was perfect with a pedestrian bridge connecting the two sides making a nice shortcut for when I’m returning to the hotel after the run. Unfortunately that bridge will be closed for most of the day during the run.

Inverness castle overlooking River Ness and Loch Ness.

The hotel I’m staying at is more of a hotel/apartment place; they own quite a few buildings along the street, so while they have normal hotel rooms they also rent out actual apartments – and at the end of the row of houses they had their restaurant. The main building where you’d find the reception they had several quite large function rooms, and being Scotland they also had their own distillery. 

Fanciest funeral home I've ever seen.

After getting breakfast at their restaurant I went to the runners’ expo and picked up my number before having a walk around town. After walking around for a bit and getting away from the center I must admit that I don’t think Inverness is the world’s most interesting town. To kill time I ended up entering their botanical garden, probably the smallest I’ve ever seen.

After a short break back at the hotel I went out for dinner at a restaurant that was connected to the local golf course. Not because it being my first choice as it was close to an hour’s walk away, but when you try booking less than a week in advance in the weekend of an activity where thousands of runners have signed up in a town of less than 50.000 people, places suddenly tend to get crowded. The walk there and back again were through areas I hadn’t been in previously so that was nice, and the weather was pleasant throughout th entire walk.

Visiting the botanical garden.

Meeting Nessie

It tends to be a bit dangerous being me when I'm bored and looking at future plans because I get very open to suggestions. I was looking for a short trip during the fall to spend some of my many saved up overtime hours from work so I could start using my vacation time. So when I saw a friend posting about her training for her first marathon I felt... inspired. I had a short chat with her and it didn't take long before I had booked my next extended weekend.

29th - 30th of September

Flying to Inverness, located at the northern end of Loch Ness, turned out to be more difficult than I had expected. I ended up getting tickets with a layover in Amsterdam, but not before I had checked tickets to Aberdeen (still needed a layover, and then a train ride after arriving) or London combining with a train ride north to my destination (flights were fine, but the train ride was long and more importantly expensive). I'll be arriving in the afternoon/evening in Inverness so I have a day and a bit to have a look around before the race. 

1st of October

The Loch Ness marathon is a point-to-point marathon, so in the morning we board busses that will take us south along the coast of the Loch, where we start app. 42km outside Inverness and then run in an almost straight line back to the city (town?) before doing a u-turn just before crossing the finish line. The run is considered as one of the most beautiful runs in the world, so I am looking forward to the views. The course is interesting; the first 16km is pretty much downhill from 350m to app. 50m, but around 28-30km we ascend app. 100m over 2-3km followed by downhill again to get us down to 10-20m. It'll be interesting in more sense than one - it'll be a long slog at the 28-30km mark and definitely give flashbacks to Heartbreak Hill in the Boston marathon.

2nd of October

Expecting to be sore I'll probably not get much sightseeing done before flying back out past noon.

I ended up only travelling Friday-Monday instead of the usual Thursday-Monday, mostly because it was hard to find a place to stay at that was close to the center, available and where the showers weren't shared. But here's crossing my fingers that day will be enough to unfold from the plane seat and be ready to run for 4 hours on the Sunday. I guess we'll have to wait and see.