BRIAN FINISHING THE INVERCLYDE MARATHON IN 1984

Brian Edridge is a quite remarkable athlete – starting as a Munro bagger who is currently on his fifth round of Munros, and not taking up running until 1983 he has run 29 marathons all over Scotland with forays into England and New York, and a wonderful career as a hill runner who has competed in the Great Wilderness Challenge four times, the Corrieyairick Pass several times, the Lairaig Ghru plus such events as the Island Peaks Race.    It is an unusual path through sport – school athletics, mountains, marathons, hill running and sailing and we can begin by looking at his sporting career before he took up running.

Brian lived and was brought up in Callander in the Trossachs and went to school in Morrison’s Academy in Crieff.   As a boy he was always aware of Ben Ledi dominating the northern horizon.   It does stand out and even today there are tourists or day trippers in the town taking photographs of it from the main street.  Even as a youngster he was drawn to the mountain before he was old enough to be allowed to climb it.   Then in 1953 when Hillary and Tenzing succeeded in climbing Mount Everest with all the attendant publicity – it was coronation year after all and a British man made the first ever ascent.   That whole story fascinated the young Edridge and added to his interest in climbing.   We can let him tell his own story from there.

“In senior school at Morrison’s Academy I did not take to cricket and switched to athletics instead.  I was a high jumper, the first in the school to master the Western Roll, and represented it at all age levels. I was no sprinter but held the lead in the Senior Mile championship only to be overtaken by others in the final dash for the line. However I did well in cross-country races.

After leaving school I whetted my appetite on a few lower local hills before my long awaited climb up Ben Ledi. I then climbed my first Munros – Stuc a’Chroin and Ben Vorlich -situated just north of Strathyre they were not far away – before going on a holiday course at Glenmore Lodge, where I learned some basic skills and made some lifelong, like-minded friends. A few years later, after completing my apprenticeship I was able to move to Glasgow and acquire transport – an old Land Rover.  I was then able to pursue my passion for hills and joined Starav MC – a small mountaineering club based in Glencoe. The weekend routine became rock climbing in good weather and Munro-bagging on poor days.

I completed my first and second rounds of the Munros in 1972 and 1982. One day In 1983 I was on Ben Mhanach with an acquaintance and found that he had run a marathon. Looking for a new challenge I immediately thought “I could do that” and ran the Motherwell Marathon later that year. I have run twenty-nine marathons with a best time of 2:42 in Glasgow on the day after my 42^nd birthday.

After running unattached for too long I met  members of Clydesdale Harriers at the Lochaber Marathon in 1987 and joined the club.   Initially running and competing on the roads and cross country, I soon joined the hillrunners where I could combine mountain experience with endurance running and this became my main focus where I enjoyed some success..   I have now completed rounds three and four of the Munros, the Corbetts, all but thirty-one Grahams and 1,128 of the 1,214 Scottish Marilyns.”

Of the hills mentioned above, the long awaited Ben Ledi climb is a straightforward one, the highest in the Trossachs it has a height of 770 metres.   Stuc a Chroin and Ben Vorlich are often done as a double although each is a Munro and a good day out in its own right.   In the brief coverage of his hill walking and climbing above, he found how seriously bad the Scottish mountains can be in winter on Bidean nam Bian in March 1976 when he was avalanched over 1000 feet down the hill.   He had just climbed a gully full of falling snow and then just got carried away all the way down.  A fractured pelvis was the result and he had to be helicoptered to Belford Hospital in Fort William where he was kept in for a week.   Bidean, by the way, is 1316 metres in height and a fearsome challenge in any weather .   

He continued to climb after that and is just outside the first 100 of those who have climbed all the Munros with his first round in 1972 putting him at number 108 of 8,417 who have done them so far and he has also completed them in 1982, 1986 and 1994.  The Corbetts were completed in 2010, A Corbett being a Scottish mountain between 2,000 feet and 2,500 feet with a prominence of at least 500 metres. He has also done most of the Grahams which are Scottish Mountains between 2,000 feet and 2,5000 feet which is the minimum height for a hill to be classed as a mountain.   He has also conquered 1202 Marilyns which sees him at 114th on the list of 347.  ( a Marilyn is a hill with a prominence of 150 metres or more regardless of height).    

Bidean nam Bean in winter

Brian ran his first marathon in May 1983 at Motherwell when he was 29^th in 3:21:38 for an excellent debut in the event.   As he said it had been mentioned by a climbing companion and just saw it as another challenge.   His next two showed an improvement of eleven minutes each time – June ’83 at Rannoch he was timed at 3:11:46 and in August that same year he ran 3:00:16 at Inverclyde.    His best time for the distance was 2:42:12 in Glasgow in September 1986 with his next quickest marathon being at Aberdeen in May 1989 when he ran 2:51.   The complete record is in the table below.

* Lochaber Marathon: Collapsed with dehydration at 24.5 miles, walked to finish, 5 stitches in head at Belford Hospital.

You will note that he travelled far and wide for his races: the spread covered Aberdeen, Benbecula, Black Isle, Dundee, Glasgow, the Lakes, Lochaber, London, Moray, New York and Windermere.   There were some interesting features in all races but maybe particularly notable are the following:

• He ran in London twice finishing, remarkably enough, in the same position –  1248th each time.   
• The New York Marathon in November 1988 was as a result of taking part in a competition in the ‘Running’ magazine.   The question to be answered was to name the five boroughs of New York  and there were six ‘winners’ with Brian being the only Scot.   In photographs of the team he had his own Saltire flag while the other five had a single Union Jack to flourish.    Brian ran well and finished in 2:56 .      He was the only one to book accommodation before he went – we don’t know what the other five did! 
• As a veteran he was fifth overall and first in his class in the Black Isle Marathon in 2:48:28.   As a veteran he seemed to like that neck of the woods with first veteran award in the Moray Marathon. 

It was after the Lochaber Marathon in 1989 that he joined Clydesdale Harriers.   Talking with Peter Rudzinski and David Mitchell, he decided it would a good idea to join a club after seven plus years running unattached and yet another challenge presented itself.   Being a member of a club led to several important changes in his career as a runner, changes in training, changes in his commitment to the sport.    

Brian Edridge the Club Runner: 1990 – 2000    Brian Edridge: Hill Runner 1988 – 2001      Brian Edridge: Administrator   

Brian Edridge: What His Friends Say

Brian’s Last Word on the subject