A few weeks back, Newport & District Running Club’s Louise Patterson completed the Loch Ness Marathon for the second time. For her, this was more than just another race, and here she tells the story of the emotional rollercoaster that was her experience of the 2025 Loch Ness Marathon:

You may want to get yourself a hot drink and make yourself comfortable. Oh, and explicit content warning!!! (Note from editor: I have slightly censored that)

The Loch Ness Marathon was the first marathon I ever did, way back in 2017, and I had no idea what I was doing. My training was a joke and at one point I was doing my long run on a Sunday and then recovering all week before doing it again. No strength training at all, no easy runs, effort or hill sessions. I’m amazed I finished it, looking back. I completed that race in 6 hours, 7 minutes and 1 second.

Since then, I have done 3 more marathons – twice at London, and once in Liverpool (3 weeks after one of the London marathons). FYI – don’t ever do that. Ever. So, in 2024 I decided I wanted to return to Loch Ness and do it again. and do it properly! I eagerly sat at my computer on race day in 2024 waiting for the 2025 event places to go live, and booked my place. Training didn’t need to start for ages, so I kept myself busy planning for a 2-hour half marathon, but I got injured at the end of January. 

I managed to come back, but got injured again just 3 weeks before race day in March and pulled out, not wanting to jeopardise the main goal of the year. At Easter, I pulled a muscle deep in my lower back, which didn’t affect my running, but was a persistent niggle and ache. I kept training whilst on holiday in North Macedonia, and on my return, I went back to the gym where I somehow angered the beast that was that deep back muscle. parkrun that weekend was painful, and I could barely hobble around the house. I took myself off to the physio, because this just did not feel right, and I was given some exercises to do, which immediately helped ease the pain and discomfort. Following the plan religiously for 2 months, I managed to build my distances back up.

Training continued, but not at the intensity I had originally hoped for. I’d wanted a 5-hour marathon, and adjusted this to a 5:15 which I know I’m capable of (at the right event). I got my distance up to 18 miles, and then got the most god-awful cold. Looking back, I think it was Covid, because after recovering from that, I immediately got another cold, which I managed to shift about 2 weeks before race day. So, not the training I had planned and hoped for, but I had managed to make it to the start line without any injuries. However, I did not make it to the start line without incident. 

I was terribly travel sick on the coach to the start line back in 2017 and knew this would be an issue this time, so I ensured that I didn’t look at my phone during the journey, tried not to look out the windows too much and generally kept my eyes closed. I even took a Kwells before hand (but maybe not nearly enough). Unfortunately, the worst happened and I was sick (more than once) on the coach about 10 minutes before we got to the start line. I’m not totally sure how this affected my body, but it can’t have had a positive impact.

Eventually, we were off, to a rousing rendition of Caledonia (which means nothing to me) and then 500 Miles by The Proclaimers (which I fully endorse) and the downhill part of the race started. I managed to tick off the first few miles fine and made sure that I didn’t go off too fast. I adopted a run/walk strategy for my long runs planning a 7:30/1:30 interval. I wanted to bank some time on the early downhills, so I didn’t walk the first 2 intervals, but I wasn’t feeling as fresh and energised as I thought I would. Probably because I’d expelled part of my nutrition stores. Even taking on energy gels, I didn’t feel quite right and it didn’t feel like I was absorbing the carbs properly. There was also the issue that, whilst planning meticulously about what to pack for my flight, I had failed to remember to bring the plastic slidey thing that closes the actual water bladder I would have been carrying, so all I had was two 500ml bottles of Coke – one of which was a mix of cola-flavoured hydration tabs, and the Coke, which I had to pour out of the bladder and back into the bottle when I realised I had no way of sealing it. 

Whilst I knew about the incline at mile 6, I’d forgotten about all of the other ones that are along the way and my brain had obviously been selective about recalling the downhills and blocking out the uphills. I started walking more of the hills and then trying to adapt my run/walk times but then at about mile 9, I got what I thought was cramp on the top of my left calf. I was not in a good place at this point, and persevered, but things just weren’t clicking. I still felt a bit weak, and at 11 miles and a lot of walking realised that it probably wasn’t cramp and more of a pull/strain. Feeling like an abject failure already I nearly threw in the towel. Not just for this race, but for Manchester in April next year too.

The mental wall had hit me and I wasn’t even half way. How the hell was I going to do this? I desperately wanted to do well which wasn’t likely to happen anymore but more than that I HAD to do better than last time and that might not be possible if I walked the rest of the way. After phoning a friend and saying “I can’t do this” 3 times and getting disconnected each time, due to either her, or my, poor signal, I phoned another friend who could actually hear me and she got me back on track. Change the plan, remember your training, just take it one mile at a time. It’s okay not to hit the A goal and just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Feeling slightly better, having had my little paddy, and having been reminded that I don’t have to be perfect, I carried on with my run, but mostly walking for just a few minutes at a time, as my calf did not feel good, and I was concerned about injuring it if I pushed too much. I met a woman from Pennsylvania who was doing a 2-minute/1-minute run/walk strategy, and joined her for a bit. She left me when I needed to walk up a hill, but I felt like I could just run for a bit, walk for a bit and repeat as needed. Sometimes I ran 3 minutes, others 2 minutes, sometimes I walked for a bit longer, but I got into a nice rhythm and at about the 16 mile mark my body started to feel good and I started to enjoy myself.

Bolstered by my rather amazing playlist and an element of delirium, I started singing out loud (which is not an experience people usually enjoy coming from me) but apparently my enthusiasm and mild insanity entertained the groups I was running with. I called my mum on the big hill at mile 19 – it’s quite a long one so it’s hard to run it all. She reminded me of how amazing I am and that she was so proud of me. There’s little more you ever need to hear than your mum is proud of you and so I carried one. There’s a sign for this climb which encourages runners to “Conquer the Monster”. This definitely didn’t feel as bad as it did in 2017, which could have been because I paced myself better, or I was better at running, but either way this didn’t feel awful. 

Eventually, the batteries on my headphones ran out, so I switched over to playing it straight from my phone. By this point, I was flat out performing the 10-minute album version of ‘Bat out of Hell’ by Meatloaf and having an absolute blast. I’d worked out by now that I should be able to finish with a sub 13-minute/mile average, which would ensure a massive improvement on my previous attempt, which was good enough for me. Nearing the end, I relaxed a bit and managed to stroke a few dogs as the last few miles are on the way into the city, and there were actually some people supporting from the pavements. 

The finish is actually rather cruel, as you run along the River Ness with the finish on the other side of the river. So you pass the finish, keep on going, turn left, cross the Ness Bridge and then turn left again to go back on yourself but on the opposite side of the river. There’s still a mile to go at this point. This is also where most of the photographers are, and I happened to miss the bloke positioned at mile 26 who caught me as I was walking and got a lovely stream of photos of me laughing hysterically after looking him square in the eye and going “Oh f***!” He took it in good humour.

I was close to the end now, determined not to walk again, and the day was catching up with me. I’d had so many ups and downs, and the downs had been deep. I really had to dig myself out a massive mental hole at mile 11, and change my mindset. I was going to improve my time by nearly half an hour. I was going to do it!! My emotions got the better of me, and it is actually really hard to run and cry at the same time, but my finish photos show the raw emotion I felt. I crossed the line and received my medal before promptly bursting into sobs by the railings. Those poor teenage girls from Brownies (or wherever) must have been very uncomfortable. The sheer relief and pride was rather overwhelming. I completed the race in 5 hours, 38 minutes and 44 seconds.

All in all I feel I was rather naive to think I could get a 10 minute PB at such an undulating event, and I also think my run/walk intervals were totally wrong. I think part of that was arrogance, but I also once again underestimated just how hard a marathon is. I’ve said it before, but running a marathon is not the same as running two half marathons. I did, however, learn a lot, which will help me going forward into Manchester in April where I shall definitely be shortening my running intervals. But, until then, I want to chill out a bit and get back to enjoying running.