First Monster

Talk about the Monster event came up at the Big Chill festival back in August, Hannah and some friends were heading up to Scotland to take part in a 120km run and bike challenge that circled Loch Ness, 8 stages with each team member completing one run and one bike stage. It sounded good, and was also a chance to visit Sarah and Chris up in Elgin, so why not, we were in. We sat discussing our training over a few beers last Friday after a 5 hour drive up to Inverness. Chris "I just can't stick to a training plan" hadn't managed to get out running, Al hadn't run for several years, Pete had pulled out because of a wedding and last minute recruit Simon had gone for a run the previous weekend. I had got out for my first runs of the year while in Ireland last weekend. Granted, we all like biking and myself and Al had just done a 1200km bike tour around England and Wales in August. So, we had an English man, and Irish man, a Scots man and a Swiss man, and figured we might as well have a laugh, convincing ourselves that all would be fine, and we still had 6 hours to get rested before our 5am start. Hannah had come up from Wales with a couple of friends and they seemed to have had less preparation than us, well, Hannah did go to a spinning class during the week. They were worried. I needed a cigarette.

First Monster is in its second year and has grown from 70 teams last year to 185 this year. It is so well organised, so friendly and had a few celebrity names such as Liz McColgan, Nell McAndrew, Ben Fogle and Gavin Hastings. We got to the stadium just after 6am, all of us quite excited and a bit daunted, so many fit looking people around, but the adrenaline was flowing. Myself and Natalie were on the first and fifth leg for the teams, all four running legs happening first and then the cycling legs, and buses to bring participants to their transition points. Stuart had come up from Wales with the girls and was our official photographer! The start and finish was on the stadium running track and it was a nice feeling to be lining up with so many others. This leg was only(!!) 9km but rose almost 300 meters through the forest in the first half, and then levelled out somewhat. I was excited but not at all looking forward to the climb. It was tough and I couldn't really believe it when I came in 51 minutes, totally exhausted we were on the board in 57th position. I handed the timer over to Al and he took off in a blur. I waited for Natalie to finish, both of us feeling exhilarated, downing the porridge, coffee, water, fruit and cakes on offer. There was a live feed at each transition point so you could keep track of your position, this really helped cause you knew roughly when you had to be ready for your next leg, and it was fun to keep track of your position during the day. Al and Chris had straightforward runs and then Simon was on the last of the running stages: a 16km undulating run with several steep sections, definitely the hardest stage. We had been bussed to the start of our bike stage, taking in stunning views of Loch Ness and the surrounding mountains. I was waiting for Simon, and he put in a fantastic effort, finishing in 1h28 and keeping us hovering around the mid 40ths.

Now I had a mountain bike stage, mainly fire track through the forest, some super steep single track to climb though, and equally steep downhills, going to lake level and way back up again, at least I was bike fit after a lot of road biking this summer. Mountain biking is so different though and this tested everyone’s endurance. Still, I managed to gain a few places and was really happy to finish the 22.5 km in 64 minutes. We were back up to 40 and three road bike stages to go. Next up was the killer though, starting with 10km uphill, steep enough that cars sometimes struggle, and a long decent, 22.5km in total, and who better than Al to do it. He is a bike machine, he couldn't wait to get going, a big smile on his face, wishing it was all uphill no doubt. He reckoned he would do it in 50 minutes, I didn't think it was possible, but he managed it, posting maybe the third fastest time for that stage amongst all the teams, and suddenly we were up to 28, we had to laugh at the irony of it all, and we were having so much fun. The girls were also doing brilliantly, in fact all of us were really exceeding any and all expectations. Chris and Simon managed to hold on over the last two shorter bike stages and we ended up in 27th position finishing in 7h08. Hannah, Sarah, Nerys and Natalie came in 9h04. All eight of us had so much fun and were simply raving about the great day we had, sure it was tough but so many friendly people of all ages and abilities and super organisation made it special. All we wanted now was a beer some food and bed, and sure enough, we were still up at 4am drinking whisky and making plans for the next Monster. Print this post