Bute Higland Games 10K Report

Post date: Aug 26, 2015 7:46:41 PM

By Stuart McGeachy

Whilst most sane people were oot enjoying themselves at the music festival on Saturday, I thought I'd be awkward and go for a wee trip to Bute for the Highland Games 10k, accompanied by my good pal and esteemed club mate Elgy O'May. Alisdair, as some people know him, is in the final weeks before his marathon and felt in good shape to slot in a 10K before the serious tapering begins. It was also a good excuse to keep the 'bold boy' aff the drink and keep him in the good books!

As it's cheaper to fly to Singapore than get the ferries to Bute via Portavaddie, we decided to take the longer route up to Colintraive ferry to ensure we could still pay our mortgages at the end of the month. The excitement was fever pitch in the car as we regaled over tales about Seumus Kelly's weight lifting shenanigans and on how Aldo Reid is the king.....good times!

We arrived in Bute about 11am and was greeted by a local male strutting about topless in a tight pair of jeans and flip flops....it was rainy and 10 degrees....welcome to the party island boys! We soon arrived into Rothesay town centre and decided it would be a good idea to get our bearings about the place. That killed a good 3 minutes. A quick bite to eat in a nice cafe and we were off to the stadium to register and fart aboot watching the wrestling.

There was a good turnout for the race with over 130 runners entered. Many of the runners were from the big clubs in the central belt and most looked fast after seeing their warm ups. The race route had a good start with a downhill stretch from the stadium into the town centre for the first kilometre. From thereafter to the 5km turning point the route was flat heading in the direction of the Rubodach ferry.

I finished in 9th place in a time of 34:22, which knocked off over 40 mins from my previous PB. However, time of the day went to Alisdair O'May with a time of 39:06. Alisdair has been pushing for the sub 40 for the last couple of years and been close to beating it on several occasions, however he managed to smash the time by over 50 seconds. It wasn't a surprise as he's picked up a 5K and half marathon PB this month, so hopefully the trend will continue and get the marathon as well in 10 days to complete the set.

Aye...yur Hardy and yer heart is full of joy. No photo from Bute so took this from the MOK TRI...looking good!

In all seriousness, it was a great day out and recommend the race as a PB course. It was a good day out watching the games and great support from the locals so will make the trip again. The only problem is it may clash with music festival, however if you time the ferries right you can get back for the early evening.

One final point. Elgy's reminded me that his time has now smashed the Drome 10K record and he's officially the fastest man at the station....gauntlet has now been thrown to Dougs and Aldo!

Full results can be found here.