Shopping Week Races
My wife has Orcadian connections and used to holiday in Stromness for 3 weeks every summer while she was growing up. It was pretty much a pre-condition of our getting married that I visit the place and that I like it. Lucky for her (or, more accurately, me) I loved it. I've now been there 4 times.
It's the first time we've been there with 2 children and we chose to coincide this visit with Shopping Week, which is an annual festival week originally intended to encourage trade. The town really comes alive and there are loads of events organised by the Shopping Week committee to suit all tastes and abilities. The main event themes seem to be: eating and drinking, arts and crafts, sporting endeavour and dressing up. Several events - such as the 3-legged, fancy dress, round the town, beer race - even manage to combine all the various themes.
I knew in advance there'd be no way I could compete with the locals on the drinking front and that I'd only do myself an injury if I tried, but there were plenty of other ways I could get stuck in and play my part. Shona's four sisters and most of their respective children and husbands were also in town for Shopping Week and there was a fair amount of expectation that I would do us proud in the running races... Zoe then threw down the gauntlet by winning the P1 girls race at the children's sports day and by the time the first running event came round on the Thursday evening I was suitably nervous and waiting to get cracking. If only I had allowed my eagerness to compete to prevent me from consuming wine and the excellent apple doughnuts from Argo's bakery in equal volumes over the previous couple of days I might have been more confident.
Anyone who knows Stromness, or who's ever seen pictures, will know of the narrow town streets and the fact the town is on a hillside that slopes down to a superb natural harbour. The 'roond-the-toon' race does pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. My brother-in-law and I had been committed to taking part from the word go. My wife had been umming and ahhing over whether to take part all week but decided on the day to go for it. The good weather probably helped. We'd also been trying to persuade my nieces and nephews to take part in the shorter kids race, but seemingly to no avail. So was very pleased when my nephew Joshua decided at the last minute to persuade the organisers to turn a blind eye to the fact that he was just short of his 9th birthday so he could enter.
All the children and adults start off together at the Pier Head, which is basically the main square and meeting point in Stromness. You head east along the main street to the edge of the town centre, then turn left and back on yourself to head up the hill along the back of the town on the aptly named Back Road. The hill here's quite steep and although there's a few other undulations, the half-way point of the race is essentially also the high-point at the top of the town in the middle of the back road. Shortly after this point, the children turn back down Hellyhole Road to do a shorter route. The adults continue along the back of the town, up and down another couple of inclines until the roundabout with the (similarly aptly named) Outertown Road where you turn left, back down and round until you hit the far edge of the town at the golf course (magnificent views across to the Hoy hills if you're up to looking) where you turn left again and go right the way along the front through the twisting and narrow main street back to where you started. All in all it's about 2.2 miles we reckoned.
My unexpected (and completely unnecessary) nervousness, plus the almost immediate left turn up a steep hill meant that I was breathing very hard at the start of the race, and struggling to catch my breath. I guess this is where the term 'lung-busting' comes from. My brother-in-law was right alongside me as we toiled up the ascent, and there were 5 runners ahead of us. Youth was definitely telling as the younger, fitter men pulled away. Experience was also important though, as we knew not to go out too hard (as if I could have pushed much harder anyway) at this early stage when there was plenty more running to be done. So we passed a couple of the more over-eager youngsters as the hill continued. My breathing stabilised and I started to feel more comfortable. Was able to pull away from my brother-in-law and others nearby and began to close on third place. Sadly this 'closing on third place' continued all the way through the race and I never quite managed it!! On the final uphill I got to within about 20 yards of him, and still in sight of 1 and 2, then on the long downhill stretch (which was brilliant by the way - much easier for me when there's no loose scree to worry about!) I got to within about 7 or 8 yards. This was as close as I got though. Along the ups and downs and lefts and rights of the main street, dodging pedestrians, shoppers and spectators, I was again breathing hard - it's a tough distance to keep the pace up on - and couldn't seem to close the gap any more, try as I might. I could also hear someone closing on me at one point. The footsteps echo in the streets, with the buildings on either side, and it turned out after that no-one was that close behind, but it helped me keep pushing... So I finished fourth, and no medal for me, boooo. My brother-in-law came in a couple of minutes and two places later.
Then the first two women came in, and a few of the older kids who'd done the longer course. I jogged back along the course to see how Mrs Mac was faring and caught up with her a few hundred yards back from the finish. She was keeping up a good, steady pace but obviously didn't want spectators as she told me to go away... I always do what my wife wants, so I stayed out of her way and followed her back to probably the loudest cheer of the night from her assembled friends and relatives. More to the point, she'd managed 3rd 'over 16 female' back, and at the prizegiving at the Pier Head about 20 minutes later, she was awarded her bronze medal by the Shopping Week Queen.
There was then a brief interlude before the start of the evening's main events, the yard-of-ale competition and the team beer races. (Bobby Oag who was compering the drinking competitions is a previous winner of both the 10K race and the yard-of-ale race - does it get much more manly than that?!!) I didn't take part in either the yard-of-ale or the beer races but something about the whole occasion was a bit infectious. So if I said that my preparation for the round-the-town race had been less than ideal, well then my preparation for the Shopping Week 10K on Saturday was even worse. Friday lunchtime saw me returning to my bed as I struggled to shake the hangover resulting from trying several local hostelries, the local ale and a couple of the local whiskies...
Anyway, Saturday came round and it was another lovely day. This might have accounted for the record field of *43* runners. There were lists up showing all previous times for the race. Not just winning times, all previous finishing times! Guess it helps when your average race entry is in the thirties. Far from the small field meaning this would be easy for me to do well in the list told me this was going to be pretty tough - my 10K PB would put me about a third of the way down the list and of the names I recognised, most were quicker than me .We met at the local high school, Stromness Academy, where the route was briefly outlined to us. It started with a lap and half of the grass 400m track. (An alarmingly familiar situation if you've been running with Bert's group lately on Wednesday nights) Then it was out of the school grounds across the lorry park by the ferry terminal and right along the main street in the opposite direction to the other night. Then when you got to the golf course, it was up the hill we'd come down the other night, then carry on a bit higher uphill on the Outertown road and then the Browntown road (basically miles 1.5 to 3 were uphill) then around The Loons (aptly named again, I feel...) before coming back into the far side of town down Hillside Road, back across the lorry park, up to the school and another lap and a half of that 400m track.
As we assembled at the start line I discovered that I, or one of my children, must have left my Garmin on at some and it had no battery left. Despite the fact I didn't even use it for the round of town race, for a 'standard distance' race I find it incredibly disorientating to not have it to rely on. I certainly think it's pretty unlikely I'd ever get a PB without it. I tend to find the pace you can manage if you're trying to achieve a target is usually a bit faster and harder than what feels 'comfortably uncomfortable'...
So I had to quickly readjust my strategy, and decided that I'd follow the 3rd placed runner from the round the town race (who was today wearing a Dunbar vest - some clubs get everywhere!) and one of the ladies who had scribbled down her details to enter at the last minute and written down that her expected finish was about 41 minutes. (The actual entry form hadn't asked for this information, and it's a minute quicker than my PB, but I didn't have much else to go on!) Plus of course, I'd run at a pace that felt about right for me...
The pack stayed tight together for the first lap of the track and I had to go really wide to get round a clump of 6 or 7 slower runners as the people I wanted to stay with were pulling ahead - seems this can still happen even in very small fields. Tucked in behind the people I expected to be close to and before you know it we were charging down the hill from the school, over kerbs and concrete in the lorry park and past the ferry terminal into town. Got a shout from two of my sisters-in-law who happened to be getting out of their car at the time. Through the main street passed plenty more startled shoppers, a couple of whom had the presence of mind to shout encouragement, but most of whom were now well used to bizarre goings on in the street given it was the last day of shopping week.
On to the hill and I actually went past a couple of people. I remembered from the race introduction that it would be a short hill before we veered off the back road. A mile of uphill plodding later as I was re-taken by one of the runners I'd passed and I muttered something about how 'he said it was a short hill....' The reply was about how they always say that don't they.... Went past my sister-in-law and her family. (He's a native Orcadian from Stromness, his Mum who was also there lived just along the road) who took a snap and cheered more encouragement. I must have been puffing and beetroot as it was also pretty damn hot and humid, to add to the constant climbing. The next runner who passed me was a local I'd chatted to before the race. Similar comment about length of hill exchanged, and then he mentioned that it was also a bit warm... (pronounced warrrrm, to rhyme with 'harm'').
It was indeed. So much so that my race number just could not cope with the amount of sweat I was producing. As we neared the half-way point and the only drinks station (plus my watching family) the soggy corner of my race number came away from it's safety-pin mooring. I ignored it for a bit and then did my best to re-attach it at another bit of the number whilst I ran. This lasted all of about 50 yards before it ripped again, and then another corner gave way too. I'd had enough of being distracted and I ripped it off and stuffed it in my pocket.
It was nice open country now and mostly flat or even downhill. Plus great views across to the Hoy hills and down to Stromness and the harbour. Could still see most of my original targets as we closed on Stromness again, although some were a bit distant. Turned a corner in to a long downhill section and voooom, the race was on. The girl I'd spotted at the start had disappeared from view and must have been off like a rocket down that hill. Talking to another runner later and he said she'd stormed past him at that point. Then down Hillside Road, across the lorry park again and up the short incline back in to the school playing fields. And yes, another lap and a half of the track! The field had obviously thinned out a lot and there were two runners on the track at the same time as me. One who was about 200 yards ahead who I closed on but couldn't catch and another who was maybe 300 yards behind me, and who I gained a little ground on. A lap of the track at the end of the race can make for an exciting finish if people are close together, and I later found out that the 2 leaders were just seconds apart at the finish, which must have made for great viewing.
I finished in about 43 and a half minutes, well off my PB but I've done much worse too, and it wasn't the easiest course I've run. Loved it though, great views, really friendly (I probably chatted with more than half of the assembled field) and well organised. There was another surprise in store too... the prizegiving was an hour later back in the centre of town at the Pier Head. Every single runner was called up to receive their trophy from the Shopping week queen. And it was one of the best post-race souvenirs I've got too, a glass 'standing stone'. Now that's worth running for, whatever shape you're in.
So the only question that remains is whether I can find a way to get back up to Orkney for the Dounby 10K in September. It's rumoured that the race souvenirs are all hand-made by Fursbreck Pottery...
Report and photos Sandy Macdonald
