It’s 2:15 am on Good Friday morning when we find ourselves at Heysham, awaiting our ferry crossing. Departing from Pleasance at 9 pm the previous evening, morale within the team is undoubtedly at an all-time low. Now, you might wonder why a motley crew of green-clad athletes is descending upon the Isle of Man at such an hour. Well, aside from some rather questionable logistical decisions made by our committee, the simple truth is this: it’s our annual pilgrimage to the Isle of Man Easter Festival of Running.
This year marked the 60th anniversary of the running festival, with the Edinburgh University Hare and Hounds (Haries), taking teams for the past thirty years. The races provide a friendly running environment, they also uniquely provide big and competitive fields which have historically attracted major athletes including legendary marathon runners Mara Yamauchi, Hugh Jones, and Ron Hill (who used the 1972 festival as part of his preparations for the Olympic Marathon in Munich).
Many traditions have been held since the seventies, with visiting university clubs keeping handwritten records of their trips each year detailing lots of entertaining stories, with these traditions being passed down through generations of student athletes.
One such example of this is the green notepad, or “Haries relic”, as the newly elected men’s captain describes it, which surfaces each year. The book contains a list and lyrics to chants, added to each year by subsequent club social secretaries. From spirited renditions of Sunshine on Leith to candid lists of profanities aimed at our main rival teams Leeds Doss AC and Manchester Alehouse, this stands as a testament to the long-standing friendly rivalries and friendships the club has fostered.
The first day of running took place on the evening of Good Friday. It took the form of the Port Erin 10km road race, which saw a record of 490 finishers racing along the coastline at sunset. The women’s course record for this race is held by Hare and Hounds alumni Alice Goodall. This year saw yet more successes for the Haries with Matt Knowles taking the silver medal in an impressive time of 31 minutes flat. Great runs were had by Luca Messenger-Jones, Seb Segger-Stavely and Rob Sparks who all finished within the top 20.
On Saturday afternoon, the action moved West for the Peel Hill races, one of the highlights of the whole festival. It is always quite a spectacle to watch, with a ribbon of brightly dressed runners scrambling up the steep climb to Corrins Folly. Since the men’s and women’s races are run separately it creates a fantastic atmosphere from a spectator perspective with the men and women taking it in turns to line the trails of the ascent in a tunnel formation with masses of noise and colour. The Haries Men’s A team took team gold in this event.
Another impressive effort on the Saturday came from Joseph O’Keefe who embarked on an impressive run from the guest house to the race and back again, clocking up a total of 54.23km of mileage throughout the day.
Easter Sunday marked the final day of racing with the flat out and back 5km race on some very tired legs along Port Douglas. The individual and team results were calculated across all three races as follows: the men’s A team finished an outstanding 2nd place, followed by the B team in 9th and C team in 20th; while the women’s A team secured an incredible 5th place finish, with the B team following closely in 8th. Our Women’s captain, Inês Gonçalves, finished an incredible 11th overall and did a commendable job of ensuring everything ran smoothly.
Ultimately, the festival extends beyond mere race times and positions; it embodies the very essence of camaraderie and competition ingrained in generations of student distance running.
“Groudle Glen on the Isle of Man” by Trey Ratcliff is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.