Scurry 2 Bridges in 2021 was an amazing event and one of my all time favourite races. Just the combination of the event route, racing as a team, the banter travelling in the van when not running, the weather - everything was spot on.
We (myself, Abe, Donny, Nicola) also came 1st mixed team (3rd overall) in 2021, which was the icing on the cake for an all round brilliant day.
So roll on two years to 2023 and the return of the race (it didn't run in 2022), I was excited to do it again but also a bit wary that it might not live up to my memory of the first one.
That concern was completely unnecessary, and the 2023 race was every bit just as fun and a great day as it was in 2021.
Scurry 2 Bridges is a team relay race covering 100 miles in total, starting at Riverside Pitches in Dundee, mainly following the Fife Coastal Path, and finishing many many hours later at World of Football on Marine Drive in Edinburgh.
Each team is made up of 4 people (any combination of men + women) with each person running 4 stages each, where a stage distance ranges between 7-12km and over a variety of different types of terrain.
The full 100 mile course split up into 16 different stages.
Logistics
One of the challenges of the race is simply working out all the logistics. The running order of who is doing each stage, who is driving the van between stages, estimated rest time between each run, when and what to eat, etc.
I love working out this kind of thing and so put together a pretty detailed spreadsheet of time estimates and stage breakdowns. I was also armed with our splits from 2021, so was able to put together a fairly accurate expected run time for each stage (probably much to the annoyance of my team haha).
I appreciate this probably sounds way over the top for essentially just a fun team race, but it definitely helped massively having a reasonably accurate ETA of when to expect the next runner to arrive at the checkpoint, or knowing how much rest you had before having to run again.
This year they also had pretty useful GPS tracking. Great for seeing where your teammate was, as well as how close the other teams were.
Speaking of teams - this year we had another very strong Race Fitness team of myself, Abe, Donny, and Kieron. Since 3 of us had done the event before, we all wanted to run different stages than the first time. I went first in the running order this time, taking on the stages that Nicola did in 2021 - Stages 1, 5, 9, 13.
Off to a fast start. The waves were staggered to reduce number of people at the first few checkpoints. We were in the final wave to head off.
Stage 1
The very first stage was 11km from Riverside Pitches in Dundee across the Tay bridge to Tayport. This was the only one of my stages I had not recce'd in advance. However, it was almost exclusively tarmac with a fairly straight forward route, so I don't think a recce would've had much benefit.
My plan was to set off at a fast pace, make the most of this very runnable stage, and hopefully start building a lead straight off the bat. Hopefully getting out of site of 2nd place as quick as possible, so that they would start thinking about 3rd place chasing them rather than them chasing us. That's exactly what I did, pushing hard at 3:30/km pace, and immediately creating a wee gap to 2nd place.
Despite all the tarmac, it was still quite a fun route. I've never ran across the Tay bridge before, and the gravel trail afterwards was ok.
Hot!
Even at this point in the day (6:45am), it was getting very hot and humid. Especially going across the bridge and the extra heat from the traffic. I sweated a LOT to say the least.
Running across the Tay bridge during the first stage.
I slowed the pace a little from the initial rapid start, but generally kept pushing very hard for the entire stage. Coming into the checkpoint at Taypoint, I think we had a 30s+ lead when I handed over to Donny for Stage 2.
I maybe pushed a bit too hard in this initial stage (it's a looong day!), finishing almost 2mins quicker than my intended pace. Although I felt extra responsibility going first, and really wanted to set the tone for the rest of the team. (My thought process being if my team see me running hard and in the lead then they might push extra hard themselves)
Stage 5
Donny, Abe, and Kieron all smashed their respective first stages. When it was back to my turn for stage 5 we had already built a lead of 15mins. We were also now the very first team to the checkpoint (Teams get sent off in waves starting at 6am at the start, faster expected teams head off last at 6:45am).
My next stage was 11.7km from East Sands Leisure Centre in St Andrews to Kingsbarns beach car park. This stage was definitely one of my tougher ones in terms of terrain and runnability. Night and day compared to the first stage.
There were sooo many rocky steps up and down the coastal trail, making it really difficult to keep up the pace and get into any sort of rhythm. For an easy run or walk it would be a really cool route with some spectacular views. However, for racing it just felt like endless awkward steps up and down, up and down, up and down, haha.
Up and down rocky coastal trails. Really fun, though difficult to run at any kind of fast pace.
The latter half of the stage changed to a more runnable dirt path through woods, and then sandy single track trails, occasionally broken up by a gate or stile.
Speaking of gates, at one point I decided to vault a gate OCR-style to save some time (probably only 5-10s lol). As soon as I leapt off the ground my right calf twinged a bit. It settled again immediately, and I continued running on at full speed, but I remember thinking "oh, probably shouldn't vault over any more gates today". More on the calf later...
In general, my 2nd stage still went pretty well. I ran hard and managed a much better pace than I expected over the very difficult terrain.
Stage 9
On to my 3rd stage, 11.8km from Shell Bay to Innerleven along the coast. The theme of this stage was sand and stinging nettles!
A glorious route along the coast with a sandy single track section, a couple of golf courses, and 1-2kms on the sand. Fun but very difficult to run at speed!
By this point (just after midday), it was now even hotter and more humid than earlier. The heat seemed to rebound up off the sand making the air even more stifling. I sweated a LOT during this stage haha.
Despite the heat things were going well for the first half of this stage. Even the stinging nettles didn't feel quite as bad as when I had recce'd the route a couple weeks previous.
There's a path in there somewhere lol. (This photo was taken during my recce, it wasn't quite as overgrown during the actual race)
However, once I got to the sand running section my calf problem came back with a vengeance. The combination of the amount I was sweating, the earlier calf twinge, and me still trying to push as fast as I could, resulted in a very sudden and painful calf cramp that completely seized up my foot.
I had to stop for a good 20-30s, trying my best to stretch it out enough for me to continue running. After what felt like an age, I managed to get back to it, though it wasn't pretty.
The end of this stage isn't great tbh, a long stretch of road into Innerleven, navigating some roadworks and diversions, finally finishing in the car park of the football stadium.
I got lost slightly ending up in the car park of a supermarket at this point, and had to climb a fence to get back on to the road. Maybe only lost 30s, so didn't overly matter. (Unfortunately some bored locals here were seemingly taking the race signage down as soon as it was put up).
My calf was in quite a bit pain, twinging every few steps or so, but I sucked it up and still got the stage finished in a reasonably quick time.
Stage 13
My final and shortest stage - 10.25km from Aberdour to Inverkeithing. This was a relatively flat mostly tarmac stage, so I expected this to be fast and I had lofty expectations of managing a sub-40min 10km even on very tired legs.
However, my calf and questionable navigation skills had other plans. My calf had seized up quite a bit at this point after the previous stage, so took a little bit of time for it to loosen up and allow me to get into a quicker stride and rhythm. Even after loosening up, the plan to still hit sub 4min/km was a struggle to say the least.
Stage 13 - Mostly tarmac cycle paths but with cracking views
I was just about managing to stay on pace until a massive navigation error completely derailed things. I came to a junction, either left into woods, or right up a small path between two fences. There was no visible course markings that I could see so it was a 50/50 chance.
I had actually recce'd this stage, though in the opposite direction (because it was easier for parking). In my memory of that recce there was a bit where you came out of woods, so I thought this must be it and chose the left path into the woods.
Unfortunately this was completely wrong *facepalm*. I realised I had went the wrong way after about 20-30s, but instead of just turning around I decided to head in a straight line to the right thinking it must eventually intersect with the "correct" path. I bushwhacked through the trees and bushes to no avail, finally being met with a high fence into what looked like someone's garden.
It did cross my mind to climb the fence at this point haha. Instead I finally saw sense, turned around and went all the way back to the original junction I had went wrong. Ultimately adding an unnecessary 2-3mins to my time.
Fuelled by the adrenaline of going the wrong way, I did get a bit of a second wind and sped up for the final stint of stage, trying my best to make up for the error.
The terrain of this stage isn't the most exciting, but some the views of the coast and the Forth bridges are spectacular.
Finish
After stage 13 that was my contribution now complete. My calf was now in bits, I was annoyed at myself for going the wrong way in my last leg, but ultimately I was still pretty happy at the effort I had put in.
All of us didn't leave much out there, and even though we built an early lead we didn't ease up or coast in at any point. I think we all felt quite proud of that fact. It would've been very easy to take the foot of the gas towards the end, especially in the stifling hot weather.
I love the very ending of this race. The entire team runs the last 400m together round the playing field and across the finish line. Due to the nature of the race (at least one person out running at all times), it's the first time the entire team comes together since 12+hrs earlier at the start.
Crossing the finish line in 1st place together as a team.
It was already an excellent day anyway, but to take the overall win definitely makes it extra special. Such an amazing feeling to cross the finish line in 1st place, in a team with your friends, after you have all put in hard graft for the past 12 hours!
Finally, massive shout out to my team (Abe, Donny, Kieron). We all beasted ourselves and absolutely smashed it. Hopefully all my Excel planning and aggressive pacing plans helped and weren't too stressful lol.
Some Final Tips
If you ever fancy doing this race (which I highly recommend), here are some tips that might help:
- Thoroughly plan out all the logistics and timings - You don't need to go to the ridiculous level of detail I did, but just having a rough idea of timings, who is running/driving which stages, etc will make things go a lot smoother on the day. (A couple of the run time vs driving time differences are actually quite tight if running fast)
- Take plenty food and water with you. You'll be out there for 12-20hrs. Even when you are not running, you'll likely be still buzzing with adrenaline which can take it out of you after a few hours. If it's really hot (like it was this year), then you'll need a LOT of water.
- Take multiple pairs of shoes, ideally tailored to the stages you are running. The terrain of the stages varies massively. One stage might be all fairly flat tarmac and the next stage might be mostly sand or trails. Know the terrain of the stages you are doing and plan your footwear accordingly.
- Having a decent sized car or van will help. For all the kit and supplies that everyone has, combined with the fact there will be 3 people in the vehicle at all times.