ACTIVE OUTDOORS: Loch Ness Marathon is in the diary for 2025 after inspiring event
Confession time. I’ve never run the Loch Ness Marathon, despite the world-famous event being on my doorstep for the last umpteen years.
This year was the 22nd staging of the event, which has grown in stature over that time and has become a staple on the Inverness events calendar.
So, after cheering my wife over the line on Sunday – and, I should add, after discussing it with her first – I entered next year’s marathon with the “super early bird” discount. I thought I’d better do it before Meg’s “never again” turned into the inevitable “I’ll train more for next year”!
My relationship with the marathon as a distance is a mixed one. My first attempt was in the early noughties when Meg and I ran the Edinburgh Marathon, and I finished in 3 hours 47 minutes – a time that remains my personal best.
A year or two later we tried the Lochaber Marathon, which at the time followed a terrible route from Fort William along the main road towards Mallaig before doing a U-turn after 13 miles and heading back the same way. The road was still open to traffic as well!
Thankfully that incarnation of the event doesn’t exist anymore, but that day was probably the hottest Fort William has ever experienced and I completely hit the wall after about 19 miles.
It was a combination of that experience and my growing boredom at watch-gazing to check my pace that first led me to off-road running, and I haven’t really returned to try my hand at on-road marathons since.
Off-road it’s a different matter – I’ve done the Glencoe Marathon a couple of times, completed the Loch Ness 360 “Three Marathons in Three Days” challenge in 2022 and done the Highland Cross (which isn’t quite a marathon but is still a full-on effort) eight times, as well as dabbling in ultra distances.
So, next year will be a new sort of challenge, tackling the road route of the Loch Ness Marathon, which around 5500 people entered at the weekend. It starts in the moors between the Suidhe viewpoint and Whitebridge, heading north-east through Foyers, Inverfarigaig and Dores into Inverness, where finishers are greeted by the crowds at Bught Park.
This year saw the course record broken in a phenomenal time of 2 hours 19 minutes and 26 seconds, with the women’s race winner going under 2 hours 55 minutes.
I won’t be aiming for anything like those sort of times, but have what I hope is a realistic target to train towards – and plenty of time to put that training into practice.
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This year I headed around the 5K course with my younger children, which involved lots of encouraging and cajoling! Matthew, Jennifer and I finished in about 43 minutes, while Clara darted ahead and crossed the line on around 32 minutes.
It was great to see plenty of familiar faces and hear those encouraging voices from the mass of volunteers and supporters that line much of the route. They always add greatly to this event and must be particularly good for marathon runners to see after long stretches of the route with few supporters between the villages on the south side of Loch Ness.
The Baxters Loch Ness Marathon and Festival of Running is a weekend of fun running activities, with the event village open for registration on the Saturday and all the runs taking place on the Sunday. There’s the 5K, a 10K route that starts at Culduthel near the Inverness Royal Academy, and the marathon, as well as a Wee Nessie run for pre-schoolers.
It’s one we always get involved with as a family, but while Meg has done the marathon three times now, I have only ever done the 5K or 10K. That means I get to see the inspirational figures crossing the finish line after that 26.2-mile run from Suidhe, from the leading runners maintaining an incredible pace to the emotional fundraisers who give it their all.
Congratulations to all those who took part in any of the events. There was a superb atmosphere at the Bught as always and so many people who pushed themselves and achieved great things. I’m looking forward to giving it my best in 2025!
