Race Marshall

Forth Inn the registration point

I spent last night marshalling for the Trossachs Night Trail race, spending over an hour in freezing conditions and then collecting tape and signs before walking back from my marker point, I was the last man back to the pub which acted as the registration point and prize-giving space. I collected my free beer and gel (do I need to declare these?) and watched as the results were churned out for the three-race series. I wished I had entered there was an M60 prize and it would have been less cold than marshalling but I have been down with a heavy cold all week and not running.

It has been a long time since I was involved in race organisation. In the 10980s I had set up an employee-running club for Strathclyde Regional Council, partly as a campaign to have workplace showers for those of us who ran to work. We organised five or so races a year, mainly 10k races in Pollock Grounds using the Strathclyde Police Sports facilities. We had a staff of over 100,000 and the events would have entries of up to 200 runners. We also entered the UK local government national championships with some success and we were asked to host the national championship. We organised the event in Strathclyde Park and I set the route, made the announcements on the day and ran as part of the team which won the team prize.  I don't think I appreciated the loneliness of race marshals or their stoicism.

The Trossachs Night Trail series was the brainchild of Angela Mudge, who lives locally and is a legendary figure in the hill racing circuit. When she calls and asks you to marshal you don't argue. Anybody who cycles across Europe from north to south, because she was injured and could not run, is not to be disobeyed. 65 runners turned up for the last race in the series of three. Over five miles around the forest with tricky twists and turns and a fast grassy descent down to the finish. It is not an easy route in the daylight but the hill runners lapped it up with their unbounded thirst for adventure aided by head torches that strobed the ink-black night.

Standing on the forest track waiting for the runners to appear was an eerie experience, there was little light pollution and I had to direct them from the fast downhill gravel track around a sharp bend and onto a steep descent with another marshal at the bottom shining his clockwork lantern. I expected the first runner half an hour after the start and he appeared slightly early, his bobbing head torch visible when half a mile away. Twenty-five minutes later the last runners passed through and it was time to gather the tape and signs and make the way back.

After the prize giving I spoke to the winner on the night and of the series. Joe Symonds was the first winner of the Glencoe Skyline race last year and has an impressive palmare of wins in mountain marathons, and hill races as well as some impressive times on the road. His father, Hugh Symonds, had written a book in 1991 about his 83-day epic run around the Scottish Munros. It was one of the books that inspired me on my first Munro round but it took me 92 days over four and a half years. Hugh Symonds had taken time off his work as a teacher and was accompanied by his wife and three children in a camper van; Joe was six at the time. Hugh also had help from the band of fell runners from the Lake District including Mick Walford, an old acquaintance from my school cross-country team. 

Joe told me that the trip was the best part of his education, it taught him so much about living simply, the environment, and how to set goals. It also nurtured his love of the Scottish mountains where he moved on leaving school to study and then work. His father had retired from teaching and spent his time cycling around the world with his wife. There was a sense of fulfilment from Joe, not the sort that emanates from an Amazon parcel, but the sort that comes from someone who has set out clear goals and works and plays hard to achieve them. He also has values that are focused on the environment and an active lifestyle.