Whilst others travelled south, Sarah and I travelled north this weekend to run the Balmoral 15 mile trail race. We arrived in plenty of time, despite stopping for tea and a sandwich en-route just south of Glenshee.
The race starts in the castle grounds and roughly follows the River Dee westwards on forestry roads for the first 6 miles, the route then turns and heads back, along a different track for another few miles still in the forest. After this section you start to gain some height are now running in open ground, albeit on a decent forest track. The final section is briefly returns to the forest before finishing back at the castle. There were loads of facilities, changing tents, toilets etc., and the race was chip timed, well marshalled, with mile markers, direction arrows and had 3 water stations, not much chance of getting it wrong. It was quite expensive but you did get a technical tee shirt for finishing.
I started in the middle of the pack and was soon passing quite a few people, being an unusual distance I was not sure of what pace to go with so started with sub 45 min 10k pace to see how I got on. This seemed to be working fine. Managed to pick off runners for the first 6 miles before settling into a solitary position for the 3rd quarter, unfortunately I lost a few places in this section, but as I was not sure how much climbing or what terrain I would be running over I eased off with the original pace.
The last part of the race saw me catch a couple of runners, which is always a boost at the end of a race. I ran the whole way, I know this sound’s dumb, but most of my races involve a section so steep you have to walk, and all this running resulted in a large blister on my right foot.
The race was won by Robbie Simpson in 1.29.30 and Angela Mudge was first lady in 1.37.31. I finished 48th in 1.52.39, my target was top 50 so I was really pleased with this, and Sarah was 105th in 2.02.27. There were 297 finishers in the race.
It was a good day out, I really enjoyed the event and I am sure that it would make a great weekend of running as there are 5 and 10ks on the Saturday before hand. It would also make a great place to stay for a few weeks in the summer if you were well connected!!!
