Warmup Run - Sunday April 26th

This year, we decided to experiment with a new format for the Warmup run.  Late last year, the Club secretary was contacted by Bogenraith Equestrian who are located near Durris and advised us that the have a restaurant on site - The Fern - and they would be happy to host an event for us.  Four of us decided to visit for lunch to see what it was like, and we were all hooked! The site is magnificent, there is plenty of parking and the restaurant was superb.  The quality of the food and service was terrific and as a bonus you get a grandstand view of any horse events which are underway both inside and outside.  We were very impressed!

We therefore spoke to Elaine the manager and discussed various options and we eventually settled on the format of a late morning assembly with a breakfast roll and a tea / coffee, depart on the road run after which we would re-assemble back at The Fern late afternoon for a high tea.

Sadly, they couldn't accommodate us on our initial planned date in early April, so we finally settled for a date later in the month, Sunday April 26th.

45 members and partners in 25 cars entered the event and following a few days of rain leading up to the day, we were all relieved when the day dawned bright and sunny, if a little cold!  Thankfully the sun was shining throughout and it gradually got warmer throughout the day.

There aren't too many options for a circuitous route from Durris and when initial thoughts were plotted on an OS Map (remember them?!), it turned out that the route would be around 140 miles - far more than we would normally have for a run - but as we had around 5 hours between breakfast and high tea and the roads chosen were magnificent with superb scenery, we decided to go with it! It was then decided to run the loop anti-clockwise,  initially heading along the South Deeside Road which meant that if participants didn't want to do the whole route, they could stop at any of the villages on the way for a break and then re-trace their steps back to The Fern. 

In the event, the vast majority did the whole route.

Leaving The Fern at around 11:00,  we headed into Royal Deeside and West Aberdeenshire, through Balmoral and Braemar before climbing up through Glenshee, where there was still some snow on the higher ground.  After Glenshee, we headed into Glenisla, through Kirriemuir before heading back up through The Mearns, eventually climbing over The Cairn O'Mount. From The Cairn, we headed back to The Fern for a fabulous and very welcome high tea.

Total distance was 137 miles and driving time was around 4 hours, which left plenty of time for people to stop for a break en-route.

We set off from The Fern towards the back of the field to ensure that we could catch any break downs -  I'm pleased to say there were none - and it was nice to see MGs parked up at various locations along the way.

Everyone said they really enjoyed the run and thought the format worked well, so we will definitely try it again and we will definitely be back at The Fern in the future. 

Many thanks to the management and staff there for making the day so enjoyable, and best wishes to the outgoing manager Elaine who was retiring shortly after our event.

Thanks too to John Chessor for providing many of the pictures below, and to Mrs Jeffery who valiantly tried to take some photos on the iPhone as we were bouncing along over Glenshee.  Perhaps I need to turn the Konis down a tad....