Loch Ness Marathon - 4th October
Having ran the first Loch Ness Marathon back in 2002, Steve Edwards had never got round to going back until this year. Luckily the 1000 mile round-trip was another successful one with the gale-force winds blowing around the North of the country on Saturday giving over to leave a perfect sunny but cool day for the marathon on Sunday.
Despite having a niggle in his lower back (not helped by the drive up) Steve still decided to set out at just under 7 minute mile pace, in case a sub-3 was on the cards. The route is a point-to-point, running North along the East side of Loch Ness along the B852 back to Inverness, a beautiful course with stunning scenery across the Loch, but a very undulating one with lots of little inclines and declines making you work that bit harder as you keep having to adjust your pace.
Having passed through halfway in 1:30:20, (a very familiar pattern is beginning to emerge!) but not running as comfortably as normal, Steve knew that a sub-3 was again going to be a tough ask today. With a pretty significant climb at 18 miles, he had no choice but to slow a little, reaching 20 miles in 2:18:50. From here though, and again as last week, Steve did pick the pace up as the course became significantly less undulating, finally entering the Queens Park Stadium to record 3:01:41 for 61st place out of over 2300 starters, so top 3% of the field.
Very happy with this time considering how he felt running, Steve knew he'd worked hard and it was a good feeling to get another sub-3:05, his 8th in row over the last 10 weeks, and although he'd narrowly missed out on a sub-3 with some of them, its certainly the best run of marathons results Steve has ever had. That's 424 sub 3:30s now done.
Report Highlights
Steve Edwards completes his 424th sub 3:30 at Loch Ness, in 3:01:41.
This was Steve's 8th sub-3:05 marathon in 10 weeks.
Click on image for a larger copy of photo.
Other reports may be found on our recent race reports page.