Happily Ever After

Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running

Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.

Glenlivet 10k 2023

by Russell Turner - 11:44 on 03 April 2023

The Week 6 18k long run, with 237m ascent, was a damp one but successfully completed. Week 7 opened with an easy 5k followed yesterday by a tougher challenge: the Glenlivet 10k. I completed this in 2021 in a rainy 1:00:49 and would have liked to crack the hour this time but correctly suspected it would not be. The weather was better – cool and still – but my chip time was 1:03:23.

The first-half hills were still monsters; I tried to compensate in the second 5k and overdid it, so more walk breaks were involved. I wasn’t too disappointed though (apart from the lack of goody bag and whisky at the finish) and it was more good practice for the Race to the Stones. I beat six other runners in the Vintage Male category, plus all those that didn’t start, although 21 others beat me, the best of them in 0:40:50. It’s a different world at the front of the race.

Just under 350 runners started and around 90 didn’t show, so this was definitely not a big city marathon. It bills itself as “The most beautiful run in Scotland”, which it may well be, in the rural heart of Cairngorm whisky country, but as usual I was more focussed on the road and avoiding any gravel slicks and potholes. Despite that, I was able occasionally to appreciate the route and the scenery, and the welcome lack of mud after recent long runs, although climbing 100m in a mile after the deceptively easy first half mile was less welcome.

With Isabel and Eilidh before the race.

It was worth the 140-mile round trip, enlivened by the company of two other Black Isle Runners (even if they did both finish well ahead of me). Will I do it again? Maybe.

Of more immediate interest is the Week 7 22k long run, tomorrow or Wednesday (I’m undecided). Good weather is forecast, and not before time. And three weeks today I’ll mark five years since my race debut, in the 2018 London Marathon, with another virtual to claim a sixth London medal. The time has flown.

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