Woah Woah, we’re half way there…. Woah Woah, Livin’ on a (wing and a) prayer…*
Half way there. Well, more than halfway I suppose.
It’s actually going quite quickly but I suspect that has more to do with the
speed of Christmas approaching being inversely proportional to the amount of
necessary Christmas chores I have managed to complete rather than anything to
do with the Marcothon itself.
This year Marcothon has come at exactly the
right time for me. It’s given me a focus, a target, when everything else seemed
a little bit hopeless so thank you Marchothon. If you thought the introduction
to my last blog was bordering on the self-pitying side then this one was
building up to be a full on misery fest but a change of work circumstances in
the last two days has changed all that. You’ll be glad of that, there’s nothing
worse than a self-pitying blog post or Facebook post.
The thing about Marcothon is that it takes away
any decision making which is ideal as you plunge into the darkness of the
winter months in Aberdeen. You will be going running today. Come what may.
There is no other option. And, like running success or failure in general, it is
down to you, not a decision made by someone else, you either run or you don’t there’s
no office politics behind it, no individual can do it for you or stop you. Only
maybe illness or injury could do that, or by your own decision. That’s the
beauty of it, the simplicity compared with the everyday crap of everyday life. Similarly for quite a while I’ve found my “midweek mountain mental floss” has been an
essential part of keeping me sane. And not requiring bail money.
Therefore I have had days of amusingly slow
runs as I negotiate the sheet ice lining the city streets and the country trails
interspersed with what I like to think were convincing Torvill and Dean impressions
but, which I suspect from a bystanders point of view, were actually more like
Bambi impressions. For anyone too nervous to venture out running on the ice in
town I have a tip for you. Go and do a night race on frozen tracks in a forest
with only a head torch to guide you and after that the well lit city streets
seem far less treacherous in comparison.
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| Reflective course markers |
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| Time keeping was a chilly job tonight! |
I actually like running in the winter and
there are some great races such as the night series put on by Deeside runners.
The first race in the series is the Cnoc Dubh night race near Cambus O May. The
race start itself was moved by a couple of hundred yards so that the runners didn’t
have to negotiate the sheet of ice covering the car park. Lining up on the
start line we were warned it was going to be slippy on the track and down to
the river and then we were set off into the darkness. The car thermometer had
registered -5 deg C in the car park and it was definitely an icy blast I felt
as we started the climb. Some brave
souls were wearing shorts too. Sure enough the gravel on the wide landrover
track was frozen solid and so I tried to stick to the very edges of the track
to get some traction from the grass and twigs at the side. Being pretty worn
out at the moment with legs that felt as heavy as lead I could only watch as
the torchlight of the majority of the field disappeared into the blackness but
the course was very well marked with reflective markers so I wasn’t too concerned
about losing my way. The first exciting bit was the descent down the gulley to
the river crossing. I had managed to catch a few people up so there were four
of us running together by the time we reached the gulley, all tackling the
descent from different directions and so when the race marshal at the bottom of
the descent started yelling that someone was too far over and not to head over
the cliff it was a little difficult to tell who he meant was about to plummet
headlong over the cliff. On balance not going over the cliff did seem like good
advice though. I carefully slithered my way down the gulley which ordinarily is
pretty muddy but tonight was frozen solid and crossed the burn while managing
to keep my feet dry. Always a bonus. With it being so cold and frozen keeping
the feet dry wasn’t as much of a challenge tonight as it often is but still I wasn’t
spared that heart stopping moment when your feet break though the crisp snowy
surface and plunge into icy boggy water underneath. Oh joy.
I got across the second stream crossing
without further soaking my feet but almost face planted as I jumped across not
realising that the other side of the path was sheet ice. I got up, no damage done
and carried on. I don’t think I was really going fast enough to damage myself
if the truth be told. The squeals and yelps I heard behind me suggested that
the runners following me had just done exactly the same. Eventually these
runners over took me as I picked my way down the track to the finish as well as
stopping to give directions to folk who were on their way out to assist an
injured runner.
Given the conditions it was probably
inevitable that someone would come a cropper but happily no one did any major structural
damage to themselves and we all made it back to the Riverside café for soup and
tea, coffee and cakes in front of a fantastic woodburning stove while enjoying
the post race chat with other runners and generally feeling as though we had
all had a bit of an adventure. I love the simplicity of these events. It’s a great
form of escapism and the camaraderie is second to none. There is something
magical about running in the ice and the cold and then warming up in front of a
fire.
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| Soup, cakes and prizes |
The race is a bargain at an entry fee of £2
and the prizes were chocolate Santas. Lets hope this batch of chocolate Santas
won’t be re-called by the store for some “wee problem” like last years were…
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| Race winner Fiona with her chocolate Santa |
*Song lyric credits to Jon Bon Jovi. Sort of.
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