The first 15km was on city tarmac paths with plenty of people out running along the river on a Saturday morning. With practically no elevation in the first quarter, it was just about getting into a rhythm and ticking off the first Ks. Just after the 15km mark, you suddenly keep to the left and leave the tarmac behind to go onto the first section of proper trail to signify you leaving the city behind.
The next 5km of trail almost felt forgotten about with the occasional wooden sign pointing out the Clyde Walkway in each direction, with sun bleached trail logos and text. The trail was starting to get a bit overgrown, with nettles and thorns sticking out across the trail threatening to take it over within a couple of years. Also several branches to duck and avoid, definitely making it feel like a while since this section has received any maintenance.
From about 20-26km the trail turned into your more stereotypical river path, running under the trees with a nice trail underfoot and with the occassional short and steep up/down. After this nice section you run along the East Kilbride Express Way for a bit, before having to cross a fairly busy road. Where you then greeted with the sight of major roads full of vehicles in every direction. After being forced to loop-de-loop your way twice up and down to cross this major junction you enter Strathclyde Country Park.
As you run along the man made loch the views are quite pleasant, but the constant loud drone of the M74 on your right and it being quite visible does ruin what could actually be a much nicer park. For the majority of the route you are rarely out of ear shot of a major road. However, as you run by the loch you shall pass the half point, with the easy half done and the harder half to come.
After about 5km of tarmac paths it turns back to trail once again, with the trail right to the river following it along. There was quite a bit erosion in this section with some large sections of the river bank that no longer existed, involving you having to drop down to almost river level before climbing 2-3 metres back up to the river bank. Some sections of the trail are now diverted inland slightly about 10 metres further away from the river, due the river claiming some sections of the trail for itself through erosion.
Just before 36km as I was running along where someones dog jumped at me from nowhere, with the dog pushing all of its weight and momentum into my thies. It was also kind enough to scratch the inside of my left thy, where I still have a couple of nice red scratch marks. The owner apolojized but I'm pretty fed up with people thinking that it's a good idea having their dogs off lead when they don't even have basic recall with their dog, especially with my dog bite scar on my left calf from just over a year ago. Unfortunately that wasn't my only experience with animals on this trail, as just 1km later there were 2 cows right on the trail instead of being on the other side of a barbed wire fence like the rest of the cows were. I slowly tried to walk past the first cow, but it slowly started to come towards me. I clapped loudly and shouted at it, but it only started to come at me quicker. I had to slowly start running backwards with the cow right in front of me (at which point I started to s*** myself as I'm always scared of getting trampled by cows), but thankfully just before I was about to turn around and leg it, the cow slowed down and stopped and now decided it was more interested in munching some grass just off the trail. After waiting a few moments I started to slowly walk past the cow again and thankfully this time it didn't seem to have any interest in me and nor did the second cow. After checking behind me a few times to reassure myself that I wasn't being chased, I was quite happy to go through the next gate.
After a bit of a farmland section the trail pulling away from the river briefly to cross a road, you quickly descend back down to the river and enter a nice woodland section where you then hit the marathon mark. It was at this point that my right quad started to hurt a bit with the long flat sections, as I'm used to running with a bit of elevation and my quads are never happy with longer flat sections.
The next 10km were a mix of short and steep up and downs with steps, sections of falling apart boardwalk and sections along farmland where the trail is quite overgrown with me having constantly having to duck and dive my head to avoid faces full of leaves. This was where I was starting to run out of steam a bit and the ups and downs probably would have been quite fun on fresher legs.
50-55km is where I started to go on countdown mode, not helped by the un-wooded sections of the trail being a bit overgrown and a few fallen trees (likely from the storm at the end of Jan 2025) which you had to either climb over or crawl under. Then you reach a locked gate just before a bit of a tarmac section just before Lanark. For a few seconds my heart sank as I thought that couldn't get through the tall gate/fence and I was quite tired by this point, until I realised that there was a perfectly good pedestrian gate on the side that I could use to get through (lol).
After a bit of a climb away from the river, you zigzag your way back down on some nice woodland trails and approach what is easily the highlight of the trail. You get to run through New Lanark with the pretty old buildings and 'run' along looking down, into the gorge and The Falls of Clyde. By this point my legs were pretty dead and was walking any incline and shuffling my way down the home straight.
After just over 60km I reached the finish line which was the dam. I was pleased that I had achieved my goal of sub 6 hours and it felt pretty satisfying knowing that I had just ran all the way from the centre of Glasgow. I had only consumed water and gels along the way and this was my 4th longest ever run and my outright longest unsupported run. The only problem with the finish point is that there is nothing there. So after taking a moment to sit down for a bit, I had to slowly drag my arse and completely dead right quad by this point, 4km uphill into Lanark to get some solid warm food from Greggs and public transport back home.