At 10pm this evening (May 31) seven intrepid dads from Banchory will set off on a they designed themselves. The run will follow a gruelling route encompassing seven local hills and is all to raise funds and awareness for three specialist brain injury facilities that are close to their hearts. Dads, Martin MacRae, John Pope, Peter Torrance, Stuart Watt, Andy Leslie, Carlos Mejuto, and David Stockan, take on a challenging but beautiful route from Banchory, up Hill of Fare, through Torphins and Potarch and onwards to the top of Clachnaben.
From there, the highest, and halfway point of the route, they will ascend Kerloch, Cairn-mon-earn and Rhindbuckie, continue down through Strachan and on to Hill of Goauch before the ascent to the top of Scolty and final descent to finish in Banchory’s King George V Park. They were inspired to take on this epic challenge by the remarkable recovery and rehabilitation of the wife of the run’s co-founder Martin MacRae, who suffered a major brain injury in 2022 while on holiday in Australia with their three young children. Martin explained: “We created the Banchory 100 run to raise funds and awareness for the three specialist facilities that saved my wife Morag’s life after she fell ill and was rushed to hospital with severe swelling of the brain.
She underwent emergency surgery to relieve the pressure, which saved her life, but by that point, her brain had already suffered a major injury.” He continued: “When Morag woke up, she couldn'.