Heb3: Harris Half Marathon

The weather has been great since we arrived on the islands. Today though, we could actually do with it being a little cooler and as if on prescription, the week of glorious sunshine abates and it’s quite a bit cooler, Just what the doctor ordered both for us running.

However, when we said cooler we didn’t actually mean we wanted a gravity defying Hebridean breeze, otherwise known as gale force eight (approx).

Just what you don't need when you’re about to do the Heb3 Part 3 with a bad back. I blame a dodgy sleeping position in the our ‘green tent of tranquillity’ E.g. sandwiched between two dogs who like half of it, each, rather than L roughing me the wrong ‘shade’. ‘That book’ has sort of dominated our conversation this week.

Our campsite by the beach at Horgabost is at mile two on today's course and several times this week we’ve driven along the other eleven miles, experiencing the experience of the route to Tarbert in advance, only with wheels. It was actually quite exhausting just looking at it from the car. As for running it? Oh my.

This morning we drive up the course again. The tables are out with water bottles and cups on them ready for the race, all weighed down with rocks against the wind. Then after we’ve registered a bus takes us all the way back up the route again to the start at Borve. This race is an A to B, in roughly a straight line, give or take a few hills, into the wind. Nice. Not. Holy cow.

The bus actually stops a mile from the start. Loo stop, on the beach. It's very well organised though. Men to the left, women to the right. Just hope the women weren’t downwind from the men, one’s aim could seriously go amiss in this wind. We both stay on the bus.

Then we travel the rest of the way to the start where we all huddle in some bloke’s driveway sheltering from the wind. No peeing in his hedge allowed, apparently he doesn’t like it.

It’s already quite apparent that today is not going to be a day for fast times. Although at first my pace isn’t too bad, as we run along the beautiful coastline and I hide from the elements in the middle of a bunch of about ten hardened Scots folk. I think this is a good strategy or was, until the group somehow dissipated. I think perhaps some of them got blown into the sea but I can't be sure.

My times were good until the serious hills began after about four miles and from that point onwards I took up a new, previously untried, racing position of being bent double against both the gradient and the horizontal ‘breeze’ from which there isn’t a degree of shelter anywhere. Scenery? What scenery? Nice tarmac. I spend 90% of the race looking downwards. My bad back is going to be even worse after this.

The wind is that strong it half rips my race number from my chest. Using my lightweight race pins to attach it now looks folly, a nail gun might have been more appropriate.

Oh my, this is tough. It would be a hard course on any day but today’s conditions are simply cruel. I look on the bright side, at least it isn’t raining.

If Barra was supposedly like pushing a wardrobe uphill then, holy s***, this was like pushing the entire bedroom suite. Fifty shades of hell.

For a while I battle with my nemesis, the winner of the over 60's category at the other races and likely to do the same again today, with knobs on. I beat him at Benbecula but here, like at Barra, he leaves me floundering in his wake. For some reason my 'inner runner' vows to keep chasing, pushing onwards and upwards or is it downwards? The wind is a great leveller, making everything seem impossible. My 'subconscious' meanwhile is in the pub knocking back its third Red Cuillin and whiskey chaser.

Apparently we have now crested the main peak but the 'mostly' downhill last five miles is not very evident, not with this fierce wind trying to push you back up the hill you’ve just come down.

Tarbet is just around this corner I’m sure or is it this corner? or this one? It’s here somewhere or at least it was yesterday. Finally I see the man trying to hold the finish line up against the prevailing gale and know that it is all nearly at an end.

1:47 is slower than Barra but that wind must have added ‘hours’. The boys and I sit by the finish and await L, watching all the others runners ‘plummeting’ down the final incline like tumbleweed in... well, quicksand.

The post-race buffet isn’t as bountiful as Barra’s but doesn’t need to be and at least they have tea. They also have Heb3 t-shirts, which is what we came for. In black as well, very nice. We also have our medal with its Harris Tweed ribbon, very authentic.

Heb3: The Barrathon

Today the race they call the Barrathon.

A 13.1 mile tour of the island that takes you clockwise right around the main and only road. It starts and finishes from Castlebay School where they have the flags out, literally.

Castlebay so named because somebody has submerged a castle in the middle of the bay.

The day starts drizzly but fines up sometime around the start of the race, I’m so ‘focused’ aka terrified that I don’t actually notice the precise moment that this happens. Terrified perhaps because everyone is taking about the hill they call Heaval, which appears to be some Gaelic misspelling of the coming together of the words ‘hell’ and ‘evil’. We have been warned.

‘Just like Leek then?’ L quips ‘but with a few downhills by the sound of it’. She really didn’t like Leek.

To make matters worse I’m still trying to fight off a touch of cold that I’ve brought on holiday with me and I’m feeling well bunged up, which could make panting in exhaustion difficult.

True to expectations the race is very lumpy although it actually starts downhill but that’s just a ruse because we’re soon going uphill. Then down, then up, then down, then up, it’s like a tarmac rollercoaster and there’s no way to get off. They’re not big hills but the sheer lack of flat gradually wears you down.

At around 10.5 miles we start the climb up Heaval, a climb apparently described as a bit like pushing a wardrobe uphill. Unfortunately I have forgotten to empty my wardrobe before I started pushing it and my demons quickly come tumbling out of it, falling on top of me. I’m also hyperventilating; my touch of cold is getting touchier. So I walk up part of the Evil-hell but believe me it’s almost as quick as running up and I still overtake people. Finally after about a mile of climbing, the ‘hill’ tops out at around 340ft and then it’s downhill to the finish, Wa-hey, or so we thought.

There’s a final short sharp kick uphill just before the finish and on the top of this unwelcome distraction a morbid crowd has gathered simply to laugh at these mad people.

Finally it’s over. 1:45 isn’t good but in the circumstances, not too bad either. I retrieve the dogs from the car and we sit somewhere, I can’t stand, to wait for L.

Post race they serve us with an amazing buffet, which consists of everything you could possibly imagine except for the one thing I’m really gagging for right now. A humble cup of strong tea. Shouldn’t really complain, they have bottles of Hebridean at the bar. No draught obviously.

In the evening there’s a Ceilidh, that's a knees up I believe but my knees won’t do 'up' tonight and we ought to spend time with the dogs anyway so we skip it.

Heb3: Benbecula Half Marathon

Let me tell you about the Heb3 Challenge. Which is to complete at least three of the five Western Isles Half Marathons - Stornoway, Benbecula, Skye, Barra or Harris in any one year. Apparently this is the longest running series of half marathons in Scotland and probably the most ridiculous for someone from the centre of England to attempt. So, here we go.



The first challenge was to get an entry into the hugely popular Barra race, which we managed, despite it selling out in 40 minutes. The second challenge is the 530 miles from Nottingham to Uig on the Isle of Skye, from where we will catch a ferry. Which will have to do twice. We couldn’t make Stornoway which was last week, so will return at the end of June to take in Barra and Harris. We could have done Skye of course but that would have been far too easy.

For all this we will get a t-shirt, complete with the Heb3 logo. We like little things like that. If we could have done all five, and this would have been a near impossibility in travel, cost and holiday allowances they would have overprinted our t-shirts with 'rinn mise na coig' on the back. Which I thought was Gaelic for ‘smart arse’ but apparently just means ‘I did the five’.

The next day we get the early-ish morning ferry (9:40am) over to Lochmaddy on North Uist.



The ferry journey takes an hour and forty-five minutes.



Then we’re rolling off the ferry and driving across North Uist which looks simply stunning in the sunshine. The terrain here is rather Icelandic, rocky but very flat with lots of little ‘tarns’ (to steal a Lake District description) everywhere. In fact more of the land is probably water than land, if you know what I mean.



There are a few villages but mostly the houses seem to be scattered around almost at random.
Benbecula is the next island to North Uist but is actually connected via a causeway. As is South Uist. Then there are the islands of Berneray (linked by causeway to North Uist) and Eriskay (linked to South Uist), so you can island hop across five islands without even, well, hopping. In fact there are more smaller linked islands, which we’ll have to research further on our next trip.



So we ‘hop’ on to Benbecula this morning and to a place called Liniclate where a compact field of 77 runners is assembling for the race. It’s sunny again but it’s also windy, something which is probably an ever present factor on these islands. It is noticed that they leave putting up the start/finish signs and the mile markers until as late as possible. Probably, lest they blow away.

Then at about 11am our debut in the 23rd running of the Western Isles Half Marathon series gets under way.

The course is mildy undulating with that strong Hebridean breeze to keep you alert. The mostly straight roads mean that you can at least you can see who you’re stalking.

It’s actually a surprisingly quick course, perhaps because despite the frequent head winds, once it gets behind you, you can really start to fly.

I team up, accidently, with another chap, who puts me to shame because he's far older than me but we pull each other along for most of the way. That is until two miles from the finish when I spot a Wrekin Road Runner, a fellow Sassenach who's come as far as we have. The urge to beat him spurs me onto a good finish.

My time of just over 1 hour 40 minutes is excellent, my best for some time but I worry about a suspiciously quick last mile of 6:30. Not something I thought I was capable of, in fact something I’m sure I’m not capable of after 12 miles, so perhaps I took a wrong turn somewhere and accidentally cheated.

Then there’s a free swim for all runners but neither of us partake. It would be a bad tactical move anyway as this would give others a head start on the huge post race buffet. From which the best cakes seem to get picked over very quickly. I did wonder why some folk started with the cakes and then worked their way back to the sandwiches and soup.

Thanks to the Jubilee weekend we at least now have three days to wind our way back to Nottingham.