Happily Ever After
Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running
Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.
More Planning
by Russell Turner - 14:38 on 27 June 2025
The race I was looking forward to most this year was the Dales Half Marathon, from Fountains Abbey to Masham, my favourite Dales village; possibly a bit hilly, but worth it for the finish. So the news on Wednesday that it’s been cancelled this year was most unwelcome, especially as accommodation was booked and a stand-in bass player found for the two City Limits gigs I’d miss (which both arrived after I’d booked that weekend off).
“Operational reasons” was the only explanation given by the organisers, which suggests either difficulty closing roads for the race or an outcry from the residents of Masham who were allegedly not impressed by the number of cars and people the Long Course Weekend brought in last year, even if the visitors spent lots while they were there. Maybe they didn’t spend enough.
A new venue will be sought for next year, and this year’s disappointed entrants will get priority entry. However, as the band already has a wedding booked for what I guess will be the date it doesn’t look promising for me. Time will tell.
Not this year.
The silver lining is that race entry will be refunded, as will pre-booked accommodation – Masham can obviously do without my money – which will save me around £350, plus petrol. Who said running was a cheap sport? As I’m a decent sort, I’ll let the stand-in keep his place, even though that costs me money. Swings and roundabouts.
The Dales HM wasn’t just a race I wanted to do, but also part of the training plan for the possible Yorkshire Marathon, which left me with a half marathon-shaped hole to fill at the end of August. The Antrim Coast HM was very tempting, but the logistics are tricky with only two months to go; elsewhere in the UK, there was nothing that leapt out as an exciting substitute worth travelling many miles to take part in. Closer to home (relatively) were two running club-organised HMs, in Caithness and Fife, which would have been OK but lacked the sparkle of mass participation events.
I looked again and found something much closer to home – an hour away, in fact: the Kinloss Running Festival, held at the former RAF Kinloss, now an army barracks, and organised internally if the mod.gov.uk email address is anything to go by. As well as the HM there’s a 10k, a 5k, and a backyard ultra. A sparkling big city event it isn’t – the road races have a maximum 200 places each, of which more than half are still available – but there’s no accommodation to pay for, minimal travel, and it’s a very flat out and back course along runways, taxiways and the perimeter road. The chances of a respectable finish time are good.
The local alternative.
The only down side is that the event could be cancelled at short notice for military reasons; I’ll keep fingers crossed that Putin or Trump don’t choose to invade that weekend.
Inspired by all the planning, and the money I’d saved from Masham, I’ve booked two more 10ks: at Killin in rural Perthshire, the week before Kinloss, when the band isn’t playing because Keith’s away, and in Stirling, the week after. The band diary is blank that weekend so I’ll hope for the best.
Further ahead, I have the Great Scottish Run pencilled in for the first weekend in October (no gigs at the moment), but am tempted by the Lincoln HM the same day, partly because Ex-triathlon Cathy and UltraPaul, who were to have been at Masham, will be there. I’ll keep my options open until nearer the time, in case more gigs pop up.
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