North Coast Marathon Series

North Coast Marathon Series

I remember when I first heard about the North Coast Marathon Series.  I was running through Monkstown Wood in November in the freezing rain as part of an East Antrim Marathon Series event with well known marathon runner Eugene “Oggie” Winters and he mentioned that he was organising his own marathons now.   The 1st one would take place on the 2nd January. Several questions went through my mind simultaneously that meant that I forgot to reply to his query about my attendance.

These were: It’s the 2nd of January on the north coast. It’ll be bloody baltic! It’s xmas, you know, a time of rest? EAMS are already doing back to back marathons on 30th & 31st December. Are people going to do another one after 1 days rest? How many people are going to attend? There’s around 60 doing this one including the half version.. How many will journey 60 odd miles to do yours? As it turns out about 50 went to the inaugural event and it got good reports.  Even though I had reservations my perspective of what a valid marathon is was altering in any case.  In that EAMS marathon I was doing 4 laps of Greenisland suburbia. I would end up doing another on the 30th December along the coast from Carrick and enjoyed it. I made a note to fit one in if the dates were right.

The next one was scheduled for the 20th March. As it turns out this date was fine and I could incorporate it into my Highland Fling plan. I’d arranged to do the D33 mile Ultra the previous week and I needed a long run which was less than 33 miles, but I still was able to keep the weeks mileage up at around 60.There was 1 problem. I’d signed up for the Larne Half. The primary reason for doing this is that I wanted to get used to running on tired legs for the Fling so I was always going to do a long run on the Sunday as well. Recently I was wrecked after doing the Carlingford Half and a 25 mile training run on the Sunday. The solution was to ease back on the pace on the Larne Half by about 10-20% so I wasn’t fatigued. As it happens a girl I knew from North Down, Helen, was aiming for a 1h45m PB and it made sense for me to pace her.  

Larne went great as it always seems to, and I headed back to put the feet up, get the carbs in and watch the rugby. In this case it was bolognese with chips and a large pizza along with some nice ale. Otherwise my preparation could have been better. I had no gels, no sweets some shot bloks. I resolved to get some confectionary in the morning while I got some diesel for the journey.

Upon getting down to the start I didn’t really expect many surprises. It was very much a spin-off of EAMS and it almost seemed like an extension of the franchise. They both have the following features in common;

- Cheap entry fee (around £20 with proceeds going to charity)

- Organisation through Eventbrite with a closed Facebook group for info

- Restricted entrance numbers. Less than 100.

- 2 starts. 1 at 8am for slower than 4h30m runners and 1 at 9am for quicker runners

- Minimal marshalling to help with busier junctions with supply drops around every 8 miles

- A nice medal at end with lots of confectionery at the end. EAMS had the back of  a car with cans of full fat coke and crisps like a school tuck shop.

I was choosing the later start as I already had to get up for 6am to get down there with getting fuel and provisions. At short notice the start time was moved forward to 8.45 which made the timing a bit tighter than I’d have liked.

When I arrived I saw a few familiar faces. There was Big Ivan who was there in support of his partner Fiona after running Larne the previous day. He’s not crazy enough to do both, neither was Fiona who skipped Larne. There was a girl from North Down, Cara, who I’d never spoken to but recognised and there was Jonny Lindsay who I’d never spoken to, but knew his brother well. The organiser was Helena Dornan, who was a distinguished local Ultra runner (she was the first lady at the recent Last One Standing Ultra). There were maybe 20 people running. Missing was the NCMS Chairperson himself, Oggie, and it occurred to me that he was almost certainly running the race with the 7.45am start. That’s the problem with an event that was designed “by marathon runners, for marathon runners”. The organisers might decide to run the event themselves!

The start was prompt at 8.45 and off we went.  I went at a 9 minute/mile pace (4 hour target time)  which immediately relegated me to the last 4 runners. The rest, including Fiona were absolutely flying ahead. I suspected she was going for the 1st lady position.  I was ok with all this speediness, but there was a Facebook post from Helena detailing how a couple of runners went the wrong way towards Portballintrae in the previous event, and I really hate getting lost in races. I also don’t want to be last in a race. Considering there were probably some slower runners in the 7.45 start overall this was unlikely, but I knew that it could well happen in practical terms.

Race start. Helena and Cara (centre) in shot

The other runners at the back were a guy who was wearing cycling gear, a couple of runners with Southern AC vests on and Jonny Lindsay.  The sun was quite bright now and it was turning into the sunniest race I’d done since Chicago in October. The views were superb of the cliffs and the sea, and there were several golf courses with bemused players looking at us. There was a steady stream of cyclists going past. A number were saying things like “great running, big lad” and being generally complementary. Thankfully there was footpath for several miles all the way through Portrush and towards Bushmills.

Dunluce Castle

At Bushmills (about 10 miles in) it was a left at the junction with the Copper Kettle cafe (as mentioned by Helena) and on towards the Giant’s Causeway. At this point the footpath disappeared and it was onto the road. There was an uphill stretch that went on for ages, the road was in poor shape and there was a constant stream of cars to play chicken with. It was now that I started to see runners coming the opposite direction. One of the first was Oggie, wearing a Chicago Marathon shirt who high fived me, along with others. It was getting customary for the out and back runners to high five each other. When the road turned left to the Causeway there were greater numbers and the first of the 8.45 starts on the return stretch appeared. I passed a couple of the runners ahead as the numerous bumpy hills took their toll. Eventually we reached the turnaround point which was at 13.1 miles precisely.  

The turnaround point

I took a quick breather and started chatting to one of the Southern AC runners. It turns out he was from Waterford and was inspired to come up after meeting Oggie at the Tralee marathon the previous week. I found it hilarious that Oggie runs around 60 marathons a year and is an evangelist for his own series, getting people to travel 300 miles north for it. He seemed like he was enjoying it, and had already signed up for Walled City and was asking me about Newry. The upsurge of tourism from The Republic hasn’t been as much as was expected, but it’s clear from this, EAMS, and the Ultras they have in NI like the Energia 24 that there’s nothing holding back runners from crossing the border to go to our events.

Keep er lit big lad

I was starting to find it tough after about 16 miles.  It seemed hilly on the way out and I thought this meant it would be easier on the return, but it really wasn’t. On the plus side the views of the scenery were better on the return. I got a clear view of Dunluce Castle and the views of Portrush in the distance, along with the backdrop of the Inishowen Peninsula. I caught up with Cara and the Waterford guy who had now adopted a walk/run strategy. I explained that I needed the running miles and went on. Cara asked what I was planning and I mentioned about The Fling. She said I was running too fast. Fair enough. At this point I knew I wouldn’t hit 4 hours but would probably not be too much after that.  I then passed Jonny who had also taken to walk/run.

At around 20 miles I decided I’d try and do what elites do and “kick” meaning use my remaining energy reserves and make use of the perceived downhill. This didn’t really work as the downhill stretches were short and my legs were pretty sore. At mile 23 I saw Helena who cheered me on. I didn’t see any marshals or anybody else for that matter. I went on autopilot to the finish.

At the finish there was some Lucozade, crisps and sweets. We were promised Morellis ice cream at presentation of our race number, and something was going on at the Anchor Bar. I didn’t really hang about as I was starting to cool down and my legs felt like someone had taken a bat to them.  On looking at the results later it turned out I was placed 23rd out of 44 with a time of 4.19.29 which I was fine with.

Finish with Oggie

So who is the NCMS for? Its for experienced marathon runners who are fine with self-supporting and who really don’t take it that seriously. I'm taking it as an enjoyable way of training for bigger challenges, and it works great for that. I can’t imagine people training for 16 weeks specifically for it, nor should they. My next marathon, my 25th, is Manchester, is very much a traditional marathon, which I will be taking seriously.

    

  

Deeside Way Ultra (D33)

Deeside Way Ultra (D33)

After doing the Clyde Stride Ultra the previous year, the D33 was always a possibility. Signing up for the Highland Fling this year made it a logical choice. I needed long training runs in the 30 mile plus vicinity and why not make it a race. By coincidence it also coincided with my birthday.  The previous year I did the Tralee Marathon as a warm-up for the Connemara Ultra on my birthday.  Better to do something memorable than a low key pub meetup in the Errigle or something.

Training had gone well over the winter.  Apart from some slight shin niggles in the New Year which were probably a result of doing too many marathons late last year and the 31 day 5k Xmas challenge I was able to build up mileage sharply in January while committing Saturdays to XC or trail races.  However the weekend before the D33 I probably overdid it. I got a 4 minute PB at Carlingford HM (1h33m) followed by a grueling 25 mile run on Sunday from Lurgan to Belfast City Centre. I had a combination of problems from Sunday evening that made me think my body was shutting down.  I appeared to have peeling on my toes in addition to unusual itchy rashes on both hands and feet. I also had a sore throat, felt feverish and developed mouth ulcers.  I took 2 complete days off, had a swim on Wednesday and a light jog with the Sweatshop Belfast crew. I’d been in worse situations before marathons in the past and recovered for the day so always have an optimistic disposition to this sort of thing.

Sure enough when I got to Aberdeen on the Friday I was feeling better. I spent much of the afternoon shopping for various sundries.  I had to sort my 3 drop bags. On this occasion there were checkpoints every 8 miles. Being an out and back course along the Dee River to Banchory CP1 and CP3 were the same with CP2 on the edge of Banchory town. I knew from experience of the last 2 Ultras I’d done to keep it light, so for each Tesco freezer bag it was isotonic drink, 2 gels, couple of snack bars, some sugary sweets (fruit pastilles on this occasion). Annoyingly I’d forgotten my vasoline so for good measure I got some generic stuff from Boots and went to an independent running shop for the wax.  When I went to the shop the sales guy was pretty chatty and asked what I was up to.  I told him that I was doing the D33 and we had a good yarn about this and other Ultras. It does seem that Ultras are more mainstream and easily discussed in general conversation here than in NI. The overwhelming response even from other runners in Belfast has been that what I’m doing is “out there” or “crazy”, whereas in Scotland doing something like the Fling or the West Highland Way is a right of passage for runners. The biggest culture shock to me so far was that I regard the Clyde Stride as the most brutal race I’ve done and when talking to Scottish runners it seems like no big thing to them.  After I got that sorted I went to Wagamamma for the traditional carb loading. I got some large portions of noodles, chilli squid and a large Tsing Tao. Lovely, but my mouth found it hard going. I returned to the Premier Inn and had a restful kip.

I got up for 7am to efficiently down a decent breakfast. I’ve found before that gorging on a full Premier Inn Breakfast is fine as long as I avoid the heavy meats.  Bacon yes, sausages no which is fine by me.  I got my kit together and power walked down to Duthie Park.  I was worried that I’d got the time wrong or something as I didnt see any other runners on Union Street. Seeing masses of runners with all their kit and drop bags in the early morning converging towards the start is something Ive always enjoyed seeing. Once I approached the river itself that would change. Lot of people with Hokas, calf guards and OMM backpacks. I caught up with one and checked that I was going the right way.  It was his first Ultra and he was a bit anxious. He’d been affected by the recent oil price downturn so was worried about his job and the uncertainty had affected his training. So annoying when real life get in the way of this pastime!

Once I’d arrived at the park I dumped my bags in the labelled car boots and picked up my race number. Toilet waiting thankfully wasn’t the usual nightmare and I was ready to rock. I bumped into Moira and John, who I knew from the Strathclyde parkrun NI tour a couple of years ago and I’d seen at the Clyde Stride Ultra.  Moira was running both this and the upcoming Fling and seemed in good form. Soon after it was time for the race briefing. I knew from reading blogs about this that it was usually given by the race director George Reid, though on this occasion it was taken by nominated “race bitch” Karen. There were some safety issues raised and it was time to go.  I noticed around me that the attire of almost every other runner was more Ultra than marathon. Id say a majority had backpacks and heavier clothing. In my mind I was running this more as a marathon than an Ultra. 7 extra flat miles didn’t warrant kitting out in the whole Arnie Commando setup. Unless the others knew something I didn't?

Race Briefing

The start was pretty quick and we almost immediately got onto the old converted railway track from the park. It immediately struck me how similar this was to The Comber Greenway, which I do enjoy running on, except it was better.  It seemed better maintained, there were lots of signs, and there were a number of overhead bridges where supporters would cheer from. The scenery along the sides would be council estates and then suburbia before it opened up to valleys of pretty farmland. There were several railway stations which had shown signs of restoration. A couple of miles in I felt it was getting quite warm so took my light  Adidas jacket off to reveal my club vest. At this point Ian called me from behind on the course. Id met him briefly at the Clyde Stride where he asked me if I knew anyone from the East Antrim Marathon Series. At that point I knew of them, but am now a committed participant. Ian is a committed marathon tourist and had done several of the better known NI marathons like Belfast and Walled City, along with EAMS (I think). We chatted for a bit, but his pace was creeping ahead of mine. I knew from his regular marathon related Facebook posts that he is a quicker marathon runner than me and pushing it this early on for an Ultra would wreck me.

Regarding pace I’d spent a bit of time mulling on this point. This was a distance I’d never done before and Id decided to run it more as a marathon pace than an Ultra but what? For some time my marathon pace was 8m35s per mile to reach the magic 3h45m marathon time, but I wouldnt be able to maintain that, particularly as this was a training run. I’d read the blogs of Rhona Red Wine Runner who had managed a PB or 5h15m after doing this 3 times. This equated to a pace of 9m30s which was a pace I was familiar with. Weird to try and beat someone’s PB time I’d never met as an objective, but I suppose I thought of it like a ghost car that appears in racing games of other players on Xbox games like Forza.

Anyway, I was keeping a bit under that pace, but no perceivable strain from it. We turned off the old line at Culter station and it started to go off onto some mucky slightly slippy paths.  I didn't panic but started to feel concerned. What if this started to resemble the Clyde Stride and instead of nice grippy path there was a mile of nettle bushes that no-one mentioned? Thankfully there wasn't and we were soon back on hard ground and CP1. It was a pretty basic checkpoint. A couple of girls were counting our numbers, there was a table with water and sweets, some cover and all our drop bags were out in numerical order (kind of) I recovered mine drank some water and cola bottle sweets and off I went. I was hoping for a portaloo but maybe at the turning point eh?

The terrain after that was quite varied. A bit of downhill woodland, a turn onto a main road which went through a town called Peterculter and then sharp left onto some forest land. If I look at the map we passed a golf course.

A Glaswegian guy next to me noticed the sign that said 8 miles to Banchory. I reassured him that it was bound to be 7 according to my Garmin and he exclaimed that those must be Northern Irish miles!  I then retorted that Scotland must have more miles like the larger whisky measures. I probably talked more with him than anyone else in the race and the miles went by quickly enough.  The paths were still pretty narrow and I started to have concern about the impending return traffic from the opposite side of the path. I knew that the sort of pace of previous years meant that the finish time of the front runners was going to be around 3h10m (ridiculous!) so it couldn't be that long. In addition I’d heard that there was a separate half distance race starting in Bachory at an unknown time.  The ground was uneven and I started to take it easy and bank to the left of the path. Recently at the Stormont cross country Id seen the aftermath of a collision in a 2 way race and it looked pretty nasty, though that involved the race leader which must have been at some pace.

On the plus side I could see what was happening at the front of the race, something that was fairly unusual for me. Larne and London Marathon are 2 good examples where you can see which East African is destroying the local competition. Soon enough the front bike arrived and behind him was a young guy with a club vest on who was what seemed miles ahead of everyone else. After this we gradually saw the other front runners go past. Most were pretty friendly giving a smile/wave/cheer. Eventually it was our turn and CP2. Still no toilet. What if you needed a No 2? (which I did) That checkpoint was quite well done otherwise, the arriving and departing streams were segmented clearly and there was more stuff at the tables to consume. John was there and I said that Moira couldn’t be far behind. She was miles quicker than me at Clyde Stride and was a fast lady who was capable of doing 90k of NI parkruns in one weekend and running through a mile of nettle bushes in shorts. Was surprised she hadn’t passed me already.

CP2

Sure enough once I got going I saw Moira pretty quickly, looking a bit tired but not in trouble or anything. As I carried on I got to see how I was doing relatively to the back markers.  Some were walking, I saw a tail runner signifying the end of this 2 way race nonsense.  It was time to take stock.  My pacing was erratic, but I was going to make marathon distance at comfortably under 4 hours. This invisible marker would be close to CP3. The last 7 miles would start and the real race would begin.  The weather was starting to get worse, so I got my jacket back on. There was a fair bit of drizzle, but I was suitably covered and wasn’t cold or anything.

I started to pass people, but was feeling some slight strain. Time for the tunes and to get the headphones on. When I was doing this I saw a girl zoom past me. I wouldn’t have thought much of it but her appearance got my attention. From a glimpse she was tall and young with blonde hair, bright yellow club vest, short shorts, long legs with funky socks, pink bracelet/watch and a looked very focused on the race indeed. She basically had strong resemblances to girls from Bangor club North Down AC who always seem to pass me towards the end of a race when I’m taking a breather. I took that as my cue to get moving.  I was feeling the NI club competitive instinct even though the outcome of an Orangegrove AC/Metro Aberdeen battle in an obscure kind of marathon, kind of ultra event would mean nothing.

Upon reaching CP3 I noticed that there was the usual accumulation of abandoned refreshments. I went straight for the full fat coke, as did a couple of other runners and we poured out some cups and marveled in its rejuvenation properties for long distance events.  It wasn’t as flat as I would have liked but still appreciated.  

Upon getting back onto the course I was relieved that we were back on more solid even ground. There was also a bit of marshal crowd support to give some cheer. I passed Metro Aberdeen girl who seemed to have stopped briefly and was running next to a bloke with a similar even pace for a bit before I had to stop at mile 30 for a breather.  Once I resumed I knew I had 5.15 in the bag. I pulled out the stops and started running at around 8.30 pace for good measure and sprinted for the finish in the park.  Time 5.12.09. Job done.

I was stunned when I got the medal which was an odd block of wood. I took it as an arty gesture. At least it wasn’t some cheap generic one.  I was quite impressed with the refreshments. We got a specially produced batch of craft ale and bottles of Stella along with various sarnies, crisps and buns. So, overall a pretty good event. Recommended. I felt a bit tired on the long walk back, had a couple days of being hungry all the time, but on Monday I was back out interval training.