Marcothon

Marcothon is an annual running event held in December each year. It began in 2009 when a Scottish runner, Marco Consani, challenged himself to run every day in November. His wife, Debbie, decided to follow this by running every day in December, and to pay tribute to her husband's idea, she called it Marcothon. She posted it on her blog and she attracted other runners willing to take part.

Now in it's 4th year it's a staple of the winter running scene in Scotland and beyond. It's easy to keep up with everyone's progress either via the website,  a Facebook group, or an account on Twitter.

The rules are pretty basic. You must run a minimum of three miles or 25 minutes - whichever comes first, every day in December. There are no prizes, just a personal challenge to get up and run every day for a month.

I decided to take part this year after seeing a club mate, Mike Newton, do it last year. He got a real boost from it personally and he managed to run 170 miles in the month. That's more mileage than I've ever managed to do in a single month so I thought it would be of benefit to me as I attempt to run some longer ultras in 2013 and also to inspire me to get out for a run on those days where I normally wouldn't feel up to it.

UPDATE: I managed to run for 16 days in a row before I had to stop due to injury. I ran 97 miles in that time. I really enjoyed it but I was pretty worn out by the time I stopped on Day 16.

I'd never run more than 7 days in a row before so it was a good achievement even if I didn't complete the whole event.

Loch Ness Marathon Review

The Loch Ness marathon is a race I've heard many good things about in the past and one that has been on my "to do" list for a while. When I made the decision to step up the number of races I was going to do this year Loch Ness was an obvious candidate for an autumn marathon.

Highland Perthshire Marathon Race Report

We travelled up to Pitlochry a few Fridays ago so I could run the Highland Perthshire Marathon as a training run for my target Marathon in Loch Ness this coming weekend. My schedule had me down to run a 20 mile training run that weekend so my goal from the race was simply to get a good long slow run in without worrying too much about my finishing time. As the course was two laps of a Half Marathon course I planned to take the first lap steady and see what I had left for the second and ease off if needed.

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.

Running in circles can be fun!

Last Sunday saw the 3rd annual running of Edinburgh Running Network's LP run. The run is based on a similar run in the US organised by the Terlingua Running Club in Houston, Texas which is now in it's 45th year.