Race Report – The Ultra Tour of Arran 2025
This is a 2 day event by Rat Race held in the little Scottish Island of Arran. It consists of about 60 miles and 11850 ft of elevation. The start and finish each day is in the port town of Brodick.
This was the first attempt of anything past marathon distance for me and my running buddy (Rousey) and although we had it booked for well over a year, training unfortunately didn’t go to plan for a variety of reasons we won’t go into, so it was down to plan B, which was to give it ago and try survive 😂
Our adventure started with the journey up to Scotland, a stop over in Ayr and a ferry from Troon which lands us in Brodick for a swift and efficient check in, mandatory kit check and provision of the trackers. We opted to stay locally in a small cottage rather than the camping option, because although we had amazing weather, it’s still Scotland in April 😬 and to be honest, I didn’t think I could even attempt this without a comfortable base 🤪
Day 1 – 8:30am start – on this day we tackle the south side of Arran, this day consisted of approx 28 ish miles and 4096ft of elevation along mixed terrain including road running through a few villages, coastal routes, forests and a bit of swamps. We had three pitstops spread more or less evenly and agreed to run the flats and the downs and walk the hills but it seemed there were more ups than downs on this day. Overall we had a good attempt at day 1, we kept a good 1 hour buffer between us and the cut off times/ sweepers and although we crossed the finish line unscathed, I felt absolutely battered and was in doubt if I could start day 2 😬
Day 2 – wow could this be any harder. Number 1, you had to run an ultra the day before, number 2 this is the harder route on the North side of the island with more miles and elevation than day 1 through glens with no paths and two mountains higher than Snowdon each to climb, number 3, just to be sadistic, a 7am start 😬 despite this, and my horrible 5am alarm and mega blisters, I somehow dragged myself to the start line, were it was apparent that only about 80% of the runners from day 1 made it, but I felt good for not giving up too easy. The first 10km was a struggle but the scenery was breath taking through the early morning of the glen, unfortunately my pace was getting slower and slower were I was really struggling. I attempted the first climb and agreed with Rousey to forge on without me as it was apparent I was not going to make the distance by the first cut off times, at that point, it seemed better to carry on to get to pit stop 1 at the far side of the Island than turn back (it was the shorter distance, my mistake was the mountain in between), I had already started the climb of Goat Fell and got caught out by the false summit which I thought was the top, to then be met with more than double the climb left to go 😂 when I reached the top, I was well in last place with the sweepers hot on my tail, the down hill was torture but I made back a bit of time and went past two runners who were also struggling. The last three miles through a another rough glen following a river at the bottom seemed to take for ever but eventually land broke and I could spot the sea, I hobbled best I could to the first check point and to no surprise and relief, I was timed out (about 11.5 miles) It just so happened that check point 1 was next to the islands distillery, it would of been rude for me not to pop into the visitor shop to get a whiskey or two 😜. I was soon put in a van and brought back to the village witha DNF. But still glad that I didn’t give up. Good old Rousey carried the flag with determination but unfortunately he too timed out at Checkpoint 2 and 33km, which was an amazing effort 👏🏻👏🏻
Overall, I don’t think this one has seen the last of us 😜
The first across the line was Ian Whiteford in 11 hours 24 min and First Lady was Kim Brechin in 13 hours 51 minutes.
The full results can be found here: https://en.follow.me.cz/leaderboard-2/UTA2025/?category_id=-1&track_id=-1
