A Bergen Adventure

It had always been an ambition of mine to run a race in Scandinavia so when some rather aimless internet scrolling one evening led me down the rabbit hole of the Bergen Fjellmaraton my interest was piqued. Thanks to the wonders of Google translate forms were filled in and a place secured for the race on the evening of Thursday June 5th.

A few points of interest about the Bergen Fjellmaraton are that  it’s not a marathon with  an actual distance of just over a half marathon. The race takes place in the evening with starts times ranging between 5pm and 7:30pm and it’s a point to point race starting at Montana about 5 miles out of the City then traversing 6 of the hills above Bergen before finishing at an athletics track just below Floyen close to the City Centre.

I had decided that I was going to start in the Competition class at 7:30pm and would therefore have a 3hour 30 time limit to complete the course. The course was to be marked in a similar way to Stuc a Chroin with plenty of flags and marshalls and although several bits looked rocky (based on YouTube evidence) I felt it would be a similar experience to the recent Ben Chonzie Hill race, long but not to technical.

Having collected my number the day before at the Viking Hall I ended up arriving at Montana far to early on the Thursday evening as the public transport is incredibly efficient, with Buses turning up exactly when the signs say they will.

It looked like about 400 people had turned up for the competition class and after a half hearted jog round the start field to warm up I took up a place about 2/3 of the way down the pack to await the start.

The first 1km was slow going slightly uphill on a reasonable but crowded track. Thankfully it had stopped raining in late afternoon but low cloud hung around the first hill Ulriken meaning we weren’t likely to get much of a view. After a kilometre the path got steeper Rockier and less well defined and in my part of the field fast hiking with intermittent jogging became the method employed.

After about 4 kilometres and having passed near the top of Ulriken (we only hit the exact top of two of the six hills) the route changed from a relentless slog uphill and became undulating. The clouds lifted and we got some stunning views of the Fjords around Bergen in the distance although I was to worried about staying on my feet to think about taking any photos!

The route across Vidden and Vareggen was a mixture of technical rocky terrain (a bit like travelling from Beinn Each to the coll before Stuc a Chroin) and Campsie type bog. Therefore I found it slow going as I could not get any rhythm and was a bit concerned at reaching the viking hut at 11k in just over one hour forty five minutes. I made myself stop and take in some water and food as I had been so pre occupied with staying on my feet that I had not eaten or drank anything so far.

What followed was another kilometre of rocky and muddy downhill running before we had a steep climb on a gravelly track up to the Rundemanen plateau. I found a lease of life on this bit of the course and passed several people and received some very enthusiastic cow bell ringing from the marshalls, although the sheep also had bells around their necks so maybe it was them cheering me on!

The route then turned left away from Rundamanen and we had what was probably the most difficult part of the course on a path that was minimal at best and full of mud, rocks and heather (at least I think it was heather!

After a few kilometres of that the route became a grassy track before we spent most of the last 5k on good tracks bar the odd deviation onto a rocky trail  with the last couple of k’s on a tarmac path and road down from Floyen viewpoint.

I was pleased  to finish in just over 3 hours, well inside the cut off time and just over halfway down the competition class field.

After tackling some more hills on the Friday I decided to do the Lostvein parkrun in one of Bergen’s suberbs on the Saturday morning. This has a similar elevation profile to Drumchapel Parkrun and despite the tiredness from Thursday night I was able to get round in just under 24 minutes and finish 2nd in my age category.

I would highly recommend a trip to Bergen. It’s a compact City full of character with a captivating old town area and with some decent 600 metre hills easily accessible from the City Centre.