Moffat Festival of Running 15K

Mark and I drove down to Moffat last night and ran the Moffat Gala Festival of Running 15K (originally called The Edinburgh Woolen Mill 15K). After such a hot day, the weather conditions on Arran a couple of weeks ago (when I ran a pitiful Half Marathon, hence no race report) were in my thoughts. By the start at 7pm (un)luckily the sun had cooled down significantly enough to mean I couldn’t use the heat as an excuse for a bad performance.

With a field in excess of 170, this is clearly a rather popular race. Lots of English clubs were out in force. Adam Anderson from Solway was there.

Without much warning (someone whispering marks near the front) the race started with a very loud gun-fire, reverberating in my ear for the first mile. The pace at the front looked fierce, but in the leading group was Mark, shooting off like a hare. The course was marked every mile which, in contrast to hill races, is actually quite a nice feature for pacing yourself; however I reckon the first mile marker had been moved or poorly placed as I ran past it in 5.45! Mark was out of sight at this stage. The road undulated pleasantly for the first four miles, where the mile markers began to tally a little closer to my estimated time. At about 2 or 3 miles Adam Anderson floated by me; I thought, maybe I did go off too quick!

Prior reports from varied sources led me to believe the course followed a minor road out of Moffat, out to the Devil’s Beeftub, up the actual Devil’s Beeftub to the main A701 road and back downhill to Moffat. This was mildly misleading, the course didn’t actually go anywhere near the Devil’s Beeftub, but instead, at the four mile mark and for nearly a mile, followed a steep track up to the A701. Pretty tough going, but I managed to make up about twelve places. Mark apparently lost about twelve places! (Adam Anderson was one).

When we reached the road, the situations were almost reversed in that Mark made up almost all of the places he lost on the climb, whereas I lost about 6. At this stage the road back to Moffat is clearly all downhill, ya beauty! Then the first woman strolled by me! Then a bit further down, the second woman passed me (in reference to Chris’s Grand Raids report, she looked like someone Mum!) and a bit further still, the third woman!!

Losing a handful more places, I was glad to reach the last mile entering Moffat, where an unkind little girl shouted out to me “17th Man”!!!! What a little shit, because I believed her for all of a second then realised she was at it! (mind you she might have said “117th man”, which would have been more realistic!).

The best was to come though; the final run into Moffat was brilliant! This must be what the London Marathon is like, the streets were lined with people, cheering and clapping. What a wonderful atmosphere. This feature alone is enough to recommend the race for future consideration. On top of that, you get a nice cup of tea, a T-Shirt, a Moffat tea coaster and a Mars bar. Not too bad.

Mark didn’t catch Adam Anderson, who clearly knows a thing or two about pacing himself! I finished about 9 minutes behind Mark, in 68.26.

Blair

Blair,

Good report. I didn’t race because of a painful knee after the half Ben and Glamaig coming up. As you descend the hill into Moffat about 2 miles out is a wee bridge called “Ruckston’s Dump” where in the 1920s a murderous doctor Ruckston from Preston dropped over the parapet several body parts of his wife wrapped in the local paper from his home town. It was an infamous trial at the time with even a popular music hall song about “blood stains on the carpet, blood stains on the knife Doctor Buck Ruckston has murdered his wife”. So there you go.

You were only about 1/2 a mile from the Beef tub at the climb but miles from it in terms of climb. Maybe see you for a glass at Glamaig.

Rgds

Dick