Olympic Challenge: The Highland Games: Perth half marathon

I have been lucky enough to live in the following places:

Athens
Brussels
Perth, Scotland
Newcastle Upon Tyne
London
Sydney

My parents were from Liverpool so I also count this as one of my lived in places since I have spent many a school holiday there during my youth.

So long before my Olympic challenge I had said to myself that I would like to run in all of the above places. Perth was the only remaining one and two weeks ago on the 8th August I got to tick it off.

It was the inaugural Perth half marathon which formed part of the Highland Games weekend. Ordinarily the longest event was the Perth Kilt run...a 5km where participants run in kilts. Fairly self explanatory eh? But this year would be the first half marathon. Kilts were not expected but you were encouraged to wear a touch of tartan.

I signed up. I left London on the Caledonian Sleeper on Friday night and arrived into Perth at 6am Saturday morning. A mere 4.5 hours prior to start time of the race. I have the ability to sleep anywhere so I had grabbed a few hours of shut eye on the train, so much so that I had a panic I had missed my stop. Fortunately I was mistaken and was only at Stirling. It turned out to be a good place to wake up as the sunrise was spectacular.

I wandered through central Perth to the park (known as the Inch) reminiscing about my mid to late teen years spent in the city. It felt lovely to be back.

I registered and picked up my number. I stored my cases and jumped onto the bus to the start line. We were taken out of town to the airport. In the three years I had lived in Perth I had never known there was an airport so everyday was indeed a school day. The race would take us through the rural hills and farms back towards the city with the final approach via Scone (that's pronounced Scoone despite what Shakespeare may have thought when he penned Macbeth) and over the bridge back to the Inch where we would finish.

There were around 300 of us running including my friend Lesley and her boyfriend Alan. I hadn't seen Lesley since I was 19 so it was a real treat to meet up again.

The instructions were to keep running straight until we saw either an arrow pointing us to turn or a marshall told us to do so. There were going to be water stops every three miles. Seemed simple. We all lined up at the start and were given a ten second count down. Off we went. I was in the start of the group and out in to the countryside we went.

The terrain was different to my usual London urban training ground but it was beautiful being out in the sunshine, Fairly quickly into the first mile I felt the leader pull me away from those behind us. As we moved up to the first mile marker I couldn't hear anyone behind me and the leader was quickly going out of my view. He was quick.

Three miles came pretty quickly and the first water stop. It was refreshing. We carried on through a few farms including one where a little dog followed me for a while. I was worried if he trailed me for too long he would get lost but he soon stopped and turned back to the farm buildings. Phew.

We then were running parallel to the river Tay. It was beautiful. As I was on my own it felt like I had the entire countryside to myself. I had never been around this area and I was enjoying the semi trail run rather than the typical road race I am used to. However; as I glanced at my watch I noticed the time creep passed the time when I would expect to hit the six mile mark. Had I missed a turn? I carried on for you a while. The water stop still wasn't there. About another 5 minutes later I was still firmly on my own and was starting to think that I was either going to have to turn around or stop and wait for a few minutes to see if anyone caught me up. Just as I turned the corner I saw a marshall. I felt elated. I was still on track! It turned out that the water station had been a little before six miles and wasn't quite ready when I had gone past. Nevermind. At least it meant I wasn't running off in the wrong direction into the Scottish Highlands.

The rest of the race went smoothly and crossing the river back into central Perth felt good. It really is a picturesque city. Our last few miles were circumnavigating the Inch which was pleasant and despite me taking a slightly wrong turn where a marshall informed me that "you're ganging the wrong way" (I love the Scottish accent) I crossed the line in second place. Much more than I ever expected. I was lucky enough to be given a porridge mixer (a gift from the Perth kilt run in Canada) as well as collecting a prize from the race today. My time was 1 hour 23 minutes 21 seconds.

The rest of the weekend went something like this:

- Post race cider celebrations with Lesley and Alan
- Two nights out with a dear friend
- 4 mate dates in one day (some whom I hadn't seen for years)
- A trip on the Caledonian Sleeper back to London in time for work on Monday morning

The race was really good fun and I hope they decide to run it again as I would love to come back. Maybe I could even try and go for first place now I know the terrain and route?!

Thanks Perth!

Waking up to a stunning sunrise in Stirling: