September 29th, 2024
As almost every year I was also planning to run a marathon in 2024. But where? This question was quickly answered when my daughter told me in spring that she and her boyfriend had registered for the Loch Ness Marathon in Inverness (Scotland) on 29 September. So it was clear: I will join them. The registration on the internet was done quickly (~93€ incl. finisher shirt).
Of course, it was also clear that it did not make sense to fly to Scotland (Edinburgh) just for the marathon weekend. So a 2 1/2 week holiday in the Outer Hebrides and on the Isle of Skye was planned after the marathon. We travelled to Edinburgh on the Wednesday before the marathon. This gave us some time for sightseeing in Edinburgh. On Friday, we travelled with a hired car to Inverness, where we stayed in our AirBnB about 20 km outside the city near the little village Beauly.
We collected our race packs and paid a brief visit to the marathon fair in the event tent on Saturday. After a tour of Inverness and a visit to the finish area with the large plastic Loch Ness Monster, we returned to our accommodation. The Loch Ness Marathon is a point-to-point marathon with the start in the Highlands and the finish in Inverness (Bught Park). Transport to the start area is provided by buses organised by the organisers from various locations (Inverness, north of Loch Ness: Drumnadrochit, Fort Augustus, south of Loch Ness: 6 more locations). Further details, such as the departure times of the buses, can be found in the Race Guide, which has been published in advance and made available via a link. Travelling by car to the start area, which is located south of Loch Ness between Fort Augustus and Foyers on the B862, is not possible.
On a first view, taking the buses from Drumnadrochit to the start area seemed to be the best option. The journey time from our accommodation would only be 18 minutes and the buses would leave at 8.15am. Unfortunately, this option was out of the question for us as there was no transport available from the finish in Inverness back to Drumnadrochit (and the other bus departure points). And a quick look at the public transportation timetables unfortunately revealed that the public buses do not run on Sundays. The advice in the Race Guide to use public transport if possible therefore seemed somewhat unrealistic.
So the only option for us was to drive to Inverness and use the buses to the start area. The departure time of the buses from Inverness was announced as 7:30 to 7:50am. Taking into account the journey time to Inverness (25 minutes) and in order to have some certainty, this meant leaving our accommodation latest at 6:15am.
And that's exactly what we did. Once we arrived in Inverness, however, a problem came up which we almost had expected: no free parking spaces. Although the Race Guide indicated a number of car parks and multi-storey car parks, they were either already occupied (partly by campers) or were located further into the city centre. However, a search near the bus departure area (Bught Park or Torvean Car Parks) in a residential area was successful.
The bus journey from Inverness to the start area in the highlands took about 70 minutes. This meant that we had about 1 hour after arrival before the start of the marathon at 10am. However, this time passed quickly with activities such as handing in our clothing bags, taking photos, watching the bagpipe band, looking for a ‘toilet place’ (as there were not enough porta-potties available) etc. Overall, there was a very relaxed atmosphere. Even the eventual winner with bib number 1 could be seen in the crowd of runners.
With the inofficial Scottish national anthem ("Caledonia" - original by Dougie MacLean) the crowd of runners was sent off on the 42km route back to Inverness at exactly 10am. The route profile promised a leisurely 16km downhill straight after the start, followed by 13km of flat stretches and at around km 28 the so-called "Dores Hill Monster", a 3km climb just after the small village of Dores before going downhill and then the last 5km being largely flat back to Inverness. That's how it was described in the race guide, but overall the many climbs (e.g. already at km 8 or the "Dores Hill Monster" at km 28) were more memorable than the downhill sections. Anyway it was a nice marathon which I have enjoyed very much. My result was worse than planned, but for various reasons I couldn't follow my training schedule. Here is the link to the Loch Ness Marathon website.
In summary:
Good:
• relaxed, pleasant atmosphere when picking up the bib number, during transport to the start and in the start and finish area
• sufficient refreshment stations along the route (with water and gel)
• nice finisher shirt in good quality
• event tent with live music in the finish area
Not so good:
• Marathon exhibition very small (just a few booths in the event tent)
• only a few parking spaces in the bus departure area (no information/signs for alternative parking spaces)
• no transport from the finish of the marathon in Inverness back to the bus departure points outside of Inverness to the start area (local public transport does not run on Sundays)
• too few toilets in the start area (also due to space problems)
• water was distributed in 0.33l plastic bottles along the way but there were far too few trash bins at the refreshment stations (as consequence a lot of plastic trash on the ground)
• no isotonic drinks on the last few kilometers
Furthermore:
• the goodie bag handed out at the finish line contained 2 cans of soup from the main sponsor and an energy gel from the sponsor High5
• the shuttle buses to the 10km start mentioned on a map in the race guide did not exist, i.e. runners who relied on this information had to walk for about an hour to the start of the 10km race
• interestingly around 5300 runners were listed on the starter list for the marathon, but the finisher list contains only around 3730 names
Used running shoe: Saucony Kinvara 14
For pictures pls. check the German version of this posting.