Selkirk Marathon

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BY: Niall Frost

Published: 1st August, 2010

CRC Selkirk Marathon

I love Scotland in the dry, the trails are great and the usual rain mean that dry days are to be savoured.  John Lloyd and his team served up another great course in Selkirk for the "100" marathon widely touted as the best course of their series.  Despite hailing from Scotland I've done more Welsh marathons that I can remember but only Selkirk once which I am now rectifying with a yearly pilgrimage!

A leisurely trip north in the campervan (specially procured for the xcracer.com team camp at Bontrager 24/12 more on which later...) and I arrived in plenty of time on Saturday evening for a good selection at the pasta party,  a pleasing sight to any rider after 3hrs in the car with only a bottle of water.  Less good were some passing comments that I looked a bit rough, cheers guys (and I call these people my friends!).
After my non-attempt at Bontrager 24/12 due to an office wide virus I was keen to (literally) get back in the saddle.  I'd felt immensely guilty leaving my team-mates down to 4 while I wallowed in self pity and complained about feeling rubbish and pretended to remember how it felt to drag yourself round 13km after 18hrs.  I was seeking a good ride to confirm health and rip the legendary Innerleithen trails.



Early attendance at the start is a must to all marathons and true to form we began at 9.40am ready for the 10 start.  There was some good banter on the startline with class XC riders from UK wide naturally converging towards the front; Phil Morris (xcracer.com) lined up next to long time rival Neal Crampton (Crosstrax), Mike Coward (Velo29), Dave Henderson (Pedal Power), Douglas Shearer (Icycles and Glencroft Rabble team member - 24/12 winners) and a late arrival from James Fraser-Moodie (Pedal Power).  With Nick Craig yet to make an appearance it was obvious that this ride was going to be less ride, more pain.

You may be wondering why I'm describing the start line in such detail?  Unfortunately for me the first climb made its self known and I didn't see any of these riders again, so that was the only time I saw the front group!  I saw 192bpm on my heart rate monitor (never a good sign) and in myself I knew that I wasn't really matching that heart rate with effort, so something was amiss which I put down to still recovering from the virus.  Not too worried I backed off and (one puncture later) made it over into the Tweed Valley for portions of their great natural singletrack with the Superfly smoothing out the rolling terrain which cheered me up no end.  At this stage I had to take one of the myriad of options offered at marathons and turned for a shorter route than the original 100.  Still great fun and fantastic to get out and ride with enough reserve not to make myself worse (I hope!) but not even enough time to warrant an Accelerade Gel.

Nick Craig came in 3hrs 45mins after starting which has to be a new course record,  Neal Crampton not far behind followed by Phil Morris and Adrian Lawrence (MK cycles) declared at joint 3rd and all coming in under the 4hrs.  Impressive stuff over the testing trails set out by renowned borders expert Pete Laing.

I have to say that if you've never ridden round the Selkirk area I'd highly recommend it, great fun and with so many close trail centres no reason you can't mix and match for a long weekend.  Go on, you know it'll be dry for your visit! ;-)

Niall Frost
XCracer.com/29ers
Thanks to Gary Fisher, Exposure Lights and Accelerade for their continued support this season.