It’s 6am and I’m removing my newly purchased visor (I’m trying to blend in) and standing in silence as they belt out the national anthem to 2000 crazies gearing up to run 26.2 miles. Patriotism over, the commentator shouts GO! (where’s the gun dude?) and I jog over the start line and focus on… umm… focussing. To my left there’s a three-wheeled bicycle rolling down the street with the sign “no guts no glory” hanging from the back of it whilst to my right Elvis Presley trots along with one hand pushing a three-wheeled contraption booming Hound Dog out of it while the other holds a can of bud lite. Oh yeah, I’m in the USA.

To be precise I’m in Huntington Beach, a beautiful place in Orange County, California to compete in the Surf City USA Marathon.

And so as beer drinking Elvis jogs off into the distance (seriously?) I find the 4 hour 25 minute pace group and stick with them. A plethora of noisy grade six kids have been recruited to shriek You got this! You are my inspiration! and other such Americanisms and they definitely cheered up a somewhat monotonous route with very little crowd support.The two long out and back loops made it psychologically a pretty tough course, but passing the religious nut and Christ’s coming back four times (which he clearly had on repeat for at least three hours) made me smile. The miles ticked away quickly enough and around mile 16 the scenery changed into ocean, beach and palm trees which made things infinitely more interesting -for me, coming from the North of Scotland… that’s pretty novel.

Miles 22, 23 and 24 pased with the constant voice in my head repeating stopping is not an option, do not walk and by 25 and 26 I am now as ever at this stage talking to myself out loud. I look like a psycho, I’ve lost both pacers (one is miles back the other appears to have slowed too) and I pass the finish line in 4h 26m – 281 out of 857 females. Yay! I am super happy! No blazing fury this time!

My smile quickly fades though as a blinding headache sets in and my 500ml bottle of water disappears way too quickly and I start drinking discarded half-finished bottles of water. I’m desperate! I can’t drink my two free beers unless I get rid of this headache and clearly being Scottish I’m not going to let them go to waste. A kind soul from San Diego gives me 2 Advil and half an hour later I’m all recovered and in the beer tent downing Michelob lite with two girls from Minnesota. Love it.