Blast. Race reports are more or less the one thing I can
normally pull together with relative competence and now this one’s three weeks
late. Cutting edge blogging going on here. What a time to be alive.
Anyway, Kilomathon Scotland. If the word ‘Kilomathon’ is
flying over your head like a furious buzzard, then allow me to try to unpick
what’s going on here. In 2010 GSi Events invented a new race distance – which they
swiftly dubbed ‘the perfect race distance’ – of 26.2km, ie the same number of kilometres
as a marathon is in miles. The idea is a step-up from a half marathon towards a
marathon, I guess. I ran the first two of them, one between Nottingham and
Derby (in 2:03) and the other a circular route over the Forth Road Bridge and
back from Ingliston (2:05 and my god those hills). It was a pretty good
distance. Not sure if it was perfect, but I enjoyed it all the same.
Since then I’ve been dimly aware that the 26.2km distance
had been binned, and that a Kilomathon was now considered 13.1km, which I might
have better called a half kilomathon. Interestingly, this distance is ALSO
branded as ‘the perfect race distance’. Whatever.
A pal who once beat me in a terrible game of tennis asked if
I was up for this event – his first ‘proper’ race – and with nothing else
planned I signed myself up. What I hadn’t twigged was the 8.30am start time. In
Leith. On the day the clocks go forward. Cripes.
Yes, Leith. It’s really quite nice these days, and the
kilomathon route intelligently leaves from Ocean Terminal shopping centre (handy
pre-race infrastructure – ie proper loos) and winds its way through a network
of high-quality footpaths laid out on a former railway line. It snakes its way
south west on a 99% traffic-free course and finishes on the pitch at Murrayfield
Stadium, home of endless disappointment in international rugby (I should know,
I have a season ticket) but a magnificent stadium nonetheless.
James and I exchanged chilly pre-race banter on a desolate
stretch of access road and before long we were away, looping behind the
shopping centre past the Royal Yacht Britannia. James was looking for 75
minutes and I was hoping for 65. It didn’t go to plan for either of us. At all.
Right away I got a wiggle on. I was working hard to run the
tangents wherever possible and the cold damp air on my flimsy running vest
meant I was in no mood for hanging about. I shot off way too fast, but much
like the time we didn’t even BQ when there were four of us, I somehow found a
way to hang on to that pace and ran more or less perfect splits all morning.
I had examined the course map ahead of time, but hadn’t
fully appreciated just how windy some of the loops were, at times clumsily
added to make up the distance rather than to enhance the experience. I was
absolutely flying by 3km but frustrated to be directed around Victoria Park on
a series of tight turns which really limited my rhythm. I could tell others
were annoyed too. Luckily before too long it was back on the footpath proper
and steaming towards Murrayfield, and there was really only one random bit of
loopy route to contend with from there...
As the kilomathon starts at sea level, the route is a gentle
climb pretty much all the way and it’s easy to be caught out in those places
where it’s more noticeable. I was working hard to keep my pace on track and the
rise in profile did make this challenging. The Crew Chief popped up at a
convenient cheering point (one of perhaps 40 spectators on the entire course –
a slightly out of the way footpath at 8.45am on a Sunday is not prime cheering
territory) and I cheerfully told her that I was dying but would see her at the
finish. Luckily I was only half right.
I’m not good at pacing kilometres and I was even more
confused as my watch was showing pace and distance in miles and the route
markers were interspersed with those for the 6.55km quarter-kilomathon. I’m not joking. In fact there was even a 2.62km
event for kids. I passed the start for the quarter kilomathoners around 6 or
7km, who were penned up waiting for, perhaps, a gap in the kilomathon traffic
and wondered if I could keep them at bay or if the speedier ones might catch
me. So anyway – there were way too many numbered signs, my own confusing watch
readout and a sleepy, GMT/BST confused brain, which taken together meant that
by 9km I decided to forget about digits and just put the hammer down.
We peeled off the footpath near Murrayfield and barrelled –
finally - downhill towards the stadium, skirting Roseburn park. I rounded what
I thought was the final corner to see a tunnel leading straight onto the pitch
and prepared a last-gasp straight-line sprint. Sadly the kilomathon route
instead peeled away to the left as we did a pointless and annoying fingerloop
of the stadium’s car park before finally taking a few tight turns to get into
that same tunnel.
Just as I stepped onto the hallowed turf – imagining just
how bad next year’s 6 Nations run would have to be in order for me to get a
call up – two men flew past me at a
full-on sprint. Remember that I’m running at about 7:15/mile here and that these
guys blew me away from absolutely nowhere, all elbows and knees. As I crossed
the finish line I got mixed up with a load of marshalls trying to hand things
to these speedsters – in fact they were the first three finishers of the
quarter-kilomathon, and their crazy pace was due to the fact that they got to
do the arrow-straight finish into the stadium. I was a tiny bit miffed at
having been jostled about by these mere quarter kilomathoners, as if that’s
even a thing, but I suppose fair play to them.
Check out this dodgy GoPro video I shot at the finish:
Check out this dodgy GoPro video I shot at the finish:
Just as in 2010 the organisers distributed medals that just
said ‘Kilomathon’ and showed the event logo – no date, no distance, no
location. Clearly they’re reused at multiple events, but whatever. The finish
line setup was slick and well organised, felt like a fun stadium finish and
best of all was done and dusted well before 10 am.
I clocked 58:03 (half 24:25 – negative split!), seven
minutes faster than I had guessed when I registered and good enough for 94th
overall out of 1,398 finishers. My splits are pretty tasty, too.
 |
| At the finish, with a Wallace cheeser |
James finished almost exactly ten minutes behind me in 68:26.
He had also beaten his estimated time
by seven minutes. He went for the classic medal-biting pose:
.JPG)
For £20, this is a solid event. But next year I think I’ll stay in bed.
Happy running
Dave
2015 to date: miles run - 320.89, parkruns - 3, races - 2
