Ronnie Cairns Running

Ronnie’s Race Face

I had a great weekend at the Edinburgh Marathon Festival. Tina and I went through on Friday night, booked into our hotel, had a walk down to the start to see all the event staff busily working away setting up for the event the next morning. We then walked up the Royal Mile and went into an Italian restaurant for a meal. The restaurant was packed with runners; I knew this with the amount of Garmin watches that were on show. It was then back to the hotel for an early night as I would be up at 6.30am for the 10k race at 9pm. On walking down to Holyrood Park in the morning there was a great vibe about the place with everyone arriving for the event. I dropped my bag off and went for a warm-up and then made my way up to the start. This was the biggest race I have taken part in so far but as usual everyone was so friendly as we waited for the start of the race. 9pm on the button the race got underway and with so many runners, it was hard at first to get going but as soon as we started to climb up and around Arthurs Seat, which I did curse as it was a long climb but after a while everyone started to thin out. There were some great views across to Leith as we ran round Arthurs Seat and I took some satisfaction in knowing that I had reached the highest part of the run and it could only be downhill from here and it was but we dipped that far downhill, there was another short climb on the way back before a nice downhill run to the finish line at Dynamic Earth. Again I experienced that great feeling, when you cross the finish line, picked up my medal and t-shirt, had a chat with some fellow competitors, many who were also running for different charities and all for their own reasons. I read recently that success is making it to the start of the race and not necessary when and where you finish, so congratulations to everyone, who made the start.   I

I would like to thank all who have donated to my fund raising so far and the Benmore Shop and Café who were my race sponsors for this event. If you would like to make a donation to the Yorkhill Childrens Charity, please go to https://www.justgiving.com/ronniecairnsrunning

Not the only dinasaur today!