Around Cumbrae 10 Mile Road Race - September 2016

Around Cumbrae 10 Mile Road Race - 11th September 2016

Makes a wee change writing about something that's not one of the monthly half marathons, and it's a pleasure to recollect a running day out on the island of Cumbrae, which, conveniently, is exactly 10 miles long around the edges. This makes it ideal for cycling (a very popular visitor pastime), but of course it is also a great venue for a 10 mile running event.   

Cumbrae is often referred to as Millport, as that is the name of the only town on the island. It sits in the Firth of Clyde and is only 10 minutes by ferry from the Ayrshire coastal town of Largs.

Decades ago Cumbrae used to be a very popular holiday destination for the citizens of Glasgow. It was classed with other 'resorts' on the Firth of Clyde as 'doon the watter', and was particularly popular before the days of holidays abroad. Although many folk got there by road or rail, and then ferry, it is also possible to sail down the Clyde on the famous paddle steamer called the Waverley. 

I remember my mum and dad taking me to Millport a couple of times when I was a younger, but my better half Clare's family used to live on the island, so in the last couple of decades we've been there a lot with our kids. 

On three of those visits I have in fact run around the island. The last two times were half marathon distance (so nearly a third more than its circumference) and you can read about both of those runs in earlier posts on this blog. However, the first time I ran around just the 10 miles of the island was on 4th May 2013 as part of my training for my first ever half marathon (Edinburgh 2013). I was very happy at completing the distance (my longest run ever at that time) and I did it in 1 hour 36 minutes. Not too bad.

The question was, what would my time be for this event over the same distance? What should I be targeting based on both my fitness relative to back then, and the weather conditions, which were much worse than they were on that lovely May day in 2013? I decided, despite all the running I had done since then, that I was probably less fit nowadays. Add in the weather factor and I resolved to target 1 hour 45 minutes as a time I would be happy with.

Because of the ferry trip involved for the majority of runners, the start time for this event was a very reasonable 2pm. How civilised. So, Clare, Scarlett, Bailey the dog, and I got into the car and drove the 35 mile journey to the ferry terminal at Largs. We arrived in good time for the ferry but noticed that it was already "blowin' a hoolie".

Unsettlingly, when we went to the Calmac office to buy our tickets, Clare spotted the notice outside that said "Gusts of up to 48 mph later this afternoon could impact the ferry service"! There was a realistic chance that we could get stuck on Cumbrae for the night if they cancelled the ferries while we were there. However, we were encouraged to see that lots of other runners were preparing to  make the trip too. If we were forced to stay the night we would just have to bunk down in the car. 

The first thing we had to do on reaching the island was to drive the 4.5 mile trip from the ferry terminal to Millport, find a good parking spot, let Bailey run around on the beach, and pick up my race number.

When I entered hall where they were dishing out the numbers (and safety pins), I went to the alphabetical list of runners' names tacked to wall to look for my number. Spookily there was both a Frank McCafferty, and a Frank McCaffery on the list. This had the potential to cause some confusion. So, I looked up my number (13!) and proceeded to the appropriate desk to pick it up.

And yes, the organisers had also spotted the possibility of the wrong number being allocated, and as I was the old bod of the two Franks they had scribbled M50 on my number, just to make sure they didn't give number 13 to the young and fit Frank.

After picking up my number it only remained to wait near the start line for the event to be begin. It was getting very very windy now, but apart from that it was a really nice day as you can see from this photo of me, Scarlett, and Bailey immediately before the race. 

When the race got under way the wind was directionally neutral. Of course, as we circumnavigated the island, that would change to both help and hinder progress.

First up was the tail wind, and from the pace stats on my running app I can see that I was using this to get incrementally faster over the first few kilometres. After that phase though I started slowing down and hitting the pace I was pretty much targeting before the race.

The headwind was still to come, but by the time I had reached the Fintry Bay café, it still hadn't appeared.

In fact it was at Fintry that I overheard a couple of nearby fellow runners say, "Only a parkrun to go!" How many of us think that during a long distance run to get us through the final 5k? During most parkruns though, you don't have to deal with 40mph headwinds for 3km, and these were about to hit just a few hundreds metres after Fintry. It was like turning a corner into the path of an industrial wind machine. 

I had long since learned that when taking on very steep hills during a long distance run it is often more efficient to power walk them, rather than try to expend energy running them badly. This especially applies in the latter part of a long distance run. This was the day I found out that the same approach applies even more so when running into extremely strong head winds. 

At first I did try and persist with running into the wind, but I soon noticed that it was so strong that while my two feet were off the ground I was literally being blown backwards. Two steps forward, one step back. By changing to power walking I always had one foot on the ground, which meant that I had stability and I was actually moving at a faster pace than when running. 

This part of the race seemed to last forever, but it actually lasted about 20 minutes. By the time I had reached the Westbourne (a place our family have stayed at several times over the years) the wind was becoming more lateral. This meant the last kilometre or so coming back into Millport almost felt like running downhill, which makes for a much more elegant look when completing the last few metres before the finish line.

In the end I had managed to complete the 10 miles only a minute slower than my target time, and it was great to see the girls and Bailey again at the finish. A great support team as usual.  

Then there was just enough time for a quick post run photo with the Firth of Clyde in the background before heading straight to the ferry, while there still was a ferry.

What an enjoyable day out, and what a great event. It is always fun running around Cumbrae, even in some of the challenging weather conditions I have encountered two of the four times I have done it. I'm looking forward to this event again next year, and may even run Cumbrae before then, either in training or as part of the Half Marathon a Month Challenge. 

Result:    01:46:15