I stumbled into the most wonderful new-to-me thing on my recent trip to Edinburgh: running tours! A running tour is a guided city tour but instaead of walking between sites of interest or sitting on a bus, you run. I was in Edinburgh for a workshop last week and I spent a lot of time sitting. I wanted to go for a run and as I was searching the internet for routes, I ended up finding the Edinburgh Marathon Festivals Running Tours.
For £27.50 you get quite a bit of EMF swag and a 90 minute tour with James, a personable and well-informed guide. He takes you through old and new Edinburgh at a comfortable pace. The website advertises 6-7 km, but of course it depends completely on the group. I was on a tour with James and a young couple from France. We covered 8.5 km in 90 minutes. There are lots of starts and stops, of course, because it is after all a tour. I learned quite a bit about Edinburgh and I got to go running. What a great combo.
My biggest fear was that it would be hard to keep up. I felt nervous when I saw the young couple because I assume their regular run pace is probably a tad faster than mine. James assured me that he paces to the slowest person in the group. If there are faster runners who want to skip up ahead, he gives them extra loops of things. Still, I didn’t want to be that person who slowed everyone down. But that wasn’t necessary on our tour.
It turns out that running tours are a thing. They have them all over the place. You can find out more about where there are tours at runningtours.net. No doubt they vary. A lot depends on the city and the guide. Edinburgh is an incredible city, steeped in interesting history and packed with sites. James is an experienced tour guide and a lot of fun to be around. So the EMF Running tours in Edinburgh are excellent.
I plan to do a lot more run tours now that I’ve discovered them.
Have you ever been on a run tour? If so, please tell us about it in the comments.
