MOKrun and Macriahanish - BH weekend May 2015

This is traditionally the weekend where we go to Mac with the intention of surfing and traditionally, get no surf! Not trashy, or dumpy, but none (!). This year was a bit different as Dave and I entered the MOKrun half marathon which, it turns out, is very popular and having done it I can see why! 

I elected to stay in my nice comfy bed on Friday night, and drove up Saturday arriving just as the guys got off of the water to tell me there was small clean surf on Friday and up to 6ft clean sets that morning. Raging, and laughing too but hey ho, I was saving myself for the race. Went for a swim in the sea without a wetsuit in as an ice bath before the race, and gave myself hypothermia symptoms and had to spend best part of an hour in the shower...! oops. That night everyone went out and I elected to sit in a warm caravan watching that new pixar film called Home, hilarious, and besides a small disaster with Skye the dog, it was an altogether nice evening where i got to cook dinner and stretch my legs inside in the warm. I trotted off to bed a bit late about midnight. God i love my down sleeping bag. 6am, porridge, 7-830am more sleep, nervous and stretching for 845, 930 am Dave, Heather and I piled in the van to get to the start of the race.....it was BALTIC! The weather was drizzly and windy as hell which wasn't ideal but a few pee stops later and we were off on the run. It was mad, and far from flat! Perhaps thats meant to be flat in Scotland? The route was awesome though, undulating roads, across a field, down the beach, back across the fields and a fast road section back to Campbeltown. Managed to keep a lot of the runners off of my back and I overtook white a few which I wasn't expecting!

Ended up coming in in 68th out of 265 runners which I was well pleased about, and a time of 1h 44m 58s.....sub 1hour 45 minutes! YAS! So thrilled. If i hadn't of been injured and it had been ideal conditions, then perhaps I could do it better! Roll on next year?! 

Spent the rest of the day huddling in Dave's caravan for warmth and the constant supply of tea and beer which heather obliged me with...she's my hero. Beers and bed. Next morning a short paddle on the waves saw me back on the water for the first time since my shoulder, and it was pretttttty sore but ok. Heres hoping :)

There are some other photos here from Jon McFadyen Photography of the event which although not specific to me or people i know, show the course in nice shots :)

Will be entering next year I think! 

:D