Highland Perthshire Marathon Countdown

The first running of the Highland Perthshire marathon is taking place this Saturday, the 1st September. I don't normally enter first runnings of marathons as I find it's better to let them bed in for a few years before taking part but this is actually my second marathon of 2012 where I'm taking part in an inaugural event, following on from the ill-fated Hull marathon on Easter Sunday where after much debate the results were declared null and void due to the official course measurement certificate being withdrawn after the event. Let's hope the HP marathon has a better first year than Hull.





I suppose if everyone boycotted an event until it had a few successful runnings then no new events would ever get off the ground and there are so few marathons in Scotland as it is that I'm happy to give this one the benefit of the doubt and have a go. The contact from the organisers on social media has been great so hopefully that's a good sign that it's going to be a well organised event.

It's a half marathon course which the full marathoners run twice which is new for me as all the other ones I've done have been single loops. The course elevation shows a generally flat course with what the organisers describe as "minor gradients between 4.5 and 7.5 miles and with one hill at the 8.3 mile point which is a gentle gradient over half a mile in distance to the 8.8 mile point". I'll need to do this twice of course so there will be the same hilly bits between approximately 17.6 and 21.9 miles too which may prove a bit tougher. At least the finish will be generally downhill unlike my most recent marathon at Dundee where the last 4 miles was uphill.

HP Marathon course profile (pic courtesy of race organisers website)

From a time point of view I'm very much treating this as a long slow run which forms part of my preparations for the Loch Ness marathon in 5 weeks so anywhere around 4 1/2 hours would be great. I ran 4:21 at Dundee 5 weeks ago where I lost about 10 minutes over the last 4 hilly miles so there's a possibility that if I have a good run on the day I could get somewhere near to my PB of 4:18 but that's not my main aim of the day which is just to enjoy the race and the scenery and get a good quality long run in.

The family are travelling up with me and we're staying in a B&B in Pitlochry that we've stayed in before and enjoyed so it should be a good weekend anyway regardless of the race result. I've bought tickets for us to attend a Ceilidh on the Saturday night arranged by the race organisers. The triplets have never been to a Ceilidh before so I'm sure they will really enjoy it. 

I just hope my legs are up to it after the race as I'm sure the three of them will be expecting me to dance with them all evening.