Race Date: 13th and 14th January 2024
Race Report by: Fiona Tweedie

The Strathearn Trail Festival is a two day event in Crieff, Perthshire, based at the Glenturret Distillery (oldest working Scottish whisky distillery). There are four events – a daytime 10km (1pm Sat), night 10km (6pm Sat), half marathon (10am Sun) and 5km (2pm Sun). Completing all four events gets you “Ultra” status. All routes were trail and ran on paths around the Knock – a hill just to the north of the town.

I had intended entering the ultra but then had a nasty cold in December AND then COVID-19 after Christmas, so ended up just doing the daytime 10km and the 5km on the Sunday.

I’ve been out of action for about 5 weeks with illness so it was fabulous just to be back out on trails again. None of the races were particularly large – maybe 50 at most – and the 5km just had 13 people, about half of whom were on their final 5km of 45km for the “ultra”.

The route climbed, then contoured around the Knock (279m) going out and back, and out and back before descending (Wheeeeeeeeeee!) through the forest back to Glenturret – 321m of elevation gain. The terrain was mixed – a little tarmac, some wider forest tracks, some tiny “single-track” boggy paths, some squeezing your way through 6ft high broom bushes, some forest paths. The night time 10km folowed the same route as the daytime one, and the half was essentially two laps of the 10km route. The 5km route cut off a lot of the going back and forward, but still had over 200m elevation. Having done the daytime 10km, I was quite happy not to be back out there in the dark!

I’d not actually run a full 10km since about October (it’s 9.5km to my office which I had run a couple of times) and after the illnesses, I really waasn’t sure how I’d get on, but I was pleased to hike strongly up the steeper hills and to move well on the flats and feel like I was zoooming down the hills. My time on my watch was 1:27 which I was happy with given the terrain. 

The organisers did have a power outage which resulted in my husband having to hold up the finish arch for a little while, and my time isn’t actually on their official results (yet – I have enquired). I do have a Strava trace though, so it did happen!

The medals were lovely wooden ones with our names on, and the distances. If you get the set of four they’ll make a nice square.

Results for the 10km race:

1^st Joshua Farrell (Dumbarton AAC) 44:28

1^st female Lizzie Whitely (no club listed) 56:57

Striders Results: