Turnout of more than 100 expected for run taking in four Borders abbeys this summer

Edinburgh-based event management team Breaking Strain plans to stage the race on Saturday, August 23, carrying on into the day after.

The route will follow the Borders Abbeys Way starting in Melrose next to the town rugby club’s Greenyards home ground.

It will take in the ruined abbey there and those at Dryburgh, Kelso and Jedburgh, also going through Hawick and Selkirk, with a 31-mile variant finishing in Jedburgh and the full 68-mile version returning to Melrose.

An application has been submitted to next week’s Kelso common good fund sub-committee for use of common good land in the town on the day.

Organisers say: “Within Kelso, we’re using the Borders Ice Rink as one of our checkpoints on the race, with the route continuing from the rink on the waymarked Borders Abbeys Ways to the Cobby via Croft Road and Edinburgh Road.

“Our race starts at 6am in Melrose, so we anticipate the first runner reaching the Borders Ice Rink at 8.30am, with the final runner coming through Kelso at approximately 10.30am.

“As the Borders Ice Rink is 27km into the race, the field will be very dispersed so there won’t be a large amount of people coming through at any one time, realistically single runners to maybe groups of four at the most.

“All runners will be wearing GPS trackers, which we will be monitoring.

“We will probably only have 130 runners maximum across both distances so the impact on the local area should be relatively small.”

Tuesday’s sub-committee meeting starts at 5.15pm.

Taking part in the race costs £46 to £120. For details, go to https://www.breakingstrain.co.uk/run-the-borders/