24 – 25th August 2024
Taking the race weekend a little further afield, several of our Harriers made their way to Dores on the shores of Loch Ness to take on the fearsome Loch Ness 24. The Loch Ness 24 is an epic 24hr solo or team relay trail running race on the banks of the world’s most famous Loch. The challenge is to clock up as many 7km laps as you can over 24 hours, along the most spectacular trails through ancient Scots pine forest and along the beaches of Loch Ness.
There are several events on offer with teams of varying sizes and those wishing to run for the full 24 hours. Our solo competitor in the 24 hour race was John Logan. Despite having only joined the Harriers in the last year or so, John has went on to podium at races across the country from 5km to 100km races. This was to be John’s biggest challenge yet as he set his target of completing 100 miles over the 24 hours. Of course, John went on to smash his target completing 26 laps totalling 113 miles! John started off steady and climbed the leaderboard into the podium positions. To round off an amazing 24 hours of racing John finished 2nd place in a very strong field. It’s a brilliant effort given there was around 250 other competitors that took on the solo effort.
In the team event we had Harriers competing in several teams. It was brilliant to see three clubs within Inverclyde coming together with representatives from GGH, IAC and Urban Fit completing a full team competing in the Small Team event, which harriers represented across each of the other teams.
There was some unfinished business for the Urban Fit team 1 consisting of Chris Mooney, Jon Hammerman, Jason Kane, Graeme Tosh & Kev Anderson. They were in the leading position last year with only 6 hours remaining before injury and fatigue took its toll. Chris Mooney representing GGH has been training well recently with the hard work paying off. Chris completed 34.5 miles (8 laps) in total over the 24 hours for the team as they took the win. The team managed an excellent 43 laps in total which put them 4 ahead of the next best placed team. The team also finished 2nd overall against the larger teams consisting of 8 team members.
Making up the Urban Fit 3 team was Lynsey Mooney who put in an incredible shift completing a huge 6 laps of the 4.3 miles course accumulating around 26 miles of racing all together. Well done to Lynsey and team mates Douglas Shearer, Stephen Patrick, Andy Armour and Jordan Hayter as they finished 14th team on the day.
Finishing in a brilliant 40th place was the Urban Fit 2 team which consisted of Wenda and Graeme Crawford, Sharon Black, Barry Machin supported by Cameron Crawford. Great effort from everyone on what looked like a much better 24 hours of running compared to the previous year. Finally, seasoned Ultra specialist Chris Cameron was brought in to boost Urban Fit Team 4 where he was accompanied by Ross Guiller, Gus Crighton, Kieran Guiller, Alan McMenemy. The team finished 13th with an excellent 32 laps.
The Harriers wish to express thanks to Andy Armour (Urban Fit) and the many other support crew involved in making this event a success.
Thanks to Chris Mooney for this report!