Clydestride Relay, 16 July

The Clydestrde relay was a new outing for us all. The Clydestride 40 is an ultramarathon, run over a 40 mile route along the banks of the River Clyde from the centre of Glasgow to New Lanark. It follows the course of the river from Glasgow through Hamilton and Strathclyde Park to finish at the historic village of New Lanark.The first half of the race seemed to consist of a tour of Morrison's supermarkets, although the scenery did get better as we moved out of Glasgow.

Liz T was running the whole thing, but some of us took advantage of the fact that for the first time, a relay was been added to the race schedule. Phil T ran Leg 1 for the men, and I think LizM ran Leg 1 for the women (apologies if I've got that wrong). Phil ran strongly to arrive at the 1st handover point in Cambuslang in 3rd position, somewhat bemused at the pace of the leading men who were running the whole distance, and handed over to Al. I think Liz handed over to Shelagh. Or was it Karen?

Anyway, we then got lost driving to the next checkpoint at a hotel car park at the entrance to Strathclyde Park, just off the M74. V. scenic. Al was mugged a bit by the fact that his leg was longer than advertised and was feeling a bit bedraggled by the time he got to Strathclyde Park. We were waiting and worrying in case he'd got lost and we were going to have to send out search parties in south Glasgow. But he turned up and and over to me, and off I went.

Meanwhile Shelagh was striding through south Glasgow with the occasional route-finding incident, and also felt a bit mugged by the extra distance - it's a bit disconcerting to be expecting to run 8 miles on an unfamiliar route and still be running after 9 miles. But she made it, and handed over to Karen for the 3rd leg.

Leg 3 was really nice - initially alongside the loch (i.e. nice and flat) and then through assorted fields and woods, still nice and flat. I also had the pleasure of overtaking people, which was a pleasant novelty, and ended up handing over to PhilM as the first relay runner at the second handover, at a random bridge somewhere in South Lanarkshire (perhaps).

Meanwhile, the rest of the women's team were a) getting lost and b) getting sent in the wrong direction by a runner who had dropped out of the race and didn't appear to know where he was or where he was going. Their generosity in giving him a lift was returned with a stony silence when he got out of the car. But they got there before Karen did, which was the important thing. Karen had a good run and handed over to Kerry for the glory leg.

And then we all made our way to New Lanark for the finish. The route from the car park to the finish took us on a big detour, to the extent that although we'd seen Phil racing down the final hill, we arrived at the finish about 15 minutes after him. The Strathearn Stags were the first relay team to finish, and the Strathearn Sirens were the first women’s team to complete the course.

To round it off, beer was provided at the finish! For essential rehydration purposes of course! I think this was probably my favourite day out of the year - definitely one for next year.