This year I decided not to run the full 53 miles of the Highland Fling from Milngavie to Tyndrum. The decision was based on the amount of time I took to recover last year and the races I either entered and did poorly or missed due to injury. So planning on running Stuc a Chroin, an AL Scottish Hill race, instead I was surprised to get an email asking me to run a leg of the mixed relay team Helensburgh AAC had entered for the Fling.
Leg 3 was to be by leg and it is a tough leg with lots of undulations and tricky boulder strewn narrow sections to navigate at speed past tired ultra runners and West Highland Way walkers. The leg is 13.8 miles long and some 1387 ft of ascent/descent.
The weather on the day was really too hot for comfortable running and I really felt for the flingers coming in to Rowardennan as I was waiting to start my leg. The atmosphere is really good however and the runners were mostly in good spirits, although I did see one or too withdraw who looked a little too hot.
Soon enough my turn to run came as Karen Wallace came into view running through Rowardennan car park, I grabbed the timing chip and headed off up the long steady climb along the side of Loch Lomond heading North. The fireroad climbs through the forest for a few miles before becoming more undulating later on. I made good progress along this section and felt to be going well
The problems start after Inversnaid when the trail gets very narrow and scrambly in places and you feel more like a mountain goat than a runner bounding from boulder to boulder. Walkers were becoming a bit of a pain here as I tried to manouver around them and their huge swaying packs. I was also starting to feel the heat and felt the going get quite tough although I was spurred on by the sheer determination of the flingers as they plodded steadily onwards and as a result felt like I needed to push on harder. Easier said than done, but I was nearly there and could see Beinglas farm in the distance and my finish, and was glad I had no more miles to do.
I handed over to Gordon Howat and headed for an ice cream at the wee campsite shop and time to catch my breath and cool down. I was pleased with my time of 2:03:40 but would really have liked to get under the 2 hrs.
In the end Helensburgh won the mixed team prize and celebrated with an ice cold beer at the finish, along with Sarah Walker and Michelle Hetherington who had run the whole lot - well done.
