Racing in Scotland - how bad can it be?

It is currently March Break here which means a lot of lucky folks are away on training camps in the sun. Alas, no training camps for us this season so we are stuck here with the intermittent weather. At the start of the week the sun was shining and the temperature popped into double figures. I made the foolhardy prediction that winter was over, but it shows how much I know as although the sun is still shining, it was snowing overnight & the temperature is back down to -8 with a very chilly wind.

We were chatting with a friend this week about the weather conditions that we had to race in in Scotland. We realised how many tales we have of racing in horrific conditions. The worst one for me was certainly the Ben Nevis Trail Half Marathon in May 2012.
The conditions were so bad that on the way to the venue at the Ben Nevis Ski Centre we passed numerous vehicles that had been blown off the road by the wind & were lying in the fields. The race should have been cancelled as it was so dangerous - gale force winds (the worst in 40 years I believe) & torrential rain driving in sideways. The race was started a couple of minutes early to avoid us all getting crushed by the toilet block that had blown over and was making it's way across the car park towards us on it's side. The marshals were all hiding in cars & all the race route markers had blown away resulting in the entire field getting lost and just milling around unaccounted for on the side of a mountain. I got so lost that when I eventually finished I had run over 16 miles in total (3 miles over the race distance). I still managed to come fifth, though this did not alleviate my anger!! Strangely the finish line was moved so it was inside a cafe - you had to open a door and walk in to cross the line!!

Here is a picture from the start line. None of our group are in it as we were still hiding behind a building. Note how hardy the Scots are still racing in shorts!!