The race starts from the road next to the path for Glen Loin so we headed in that direction and set a good pace up the glen out of the wind and were soon overheating and removing jackets. The track gets your heart going as the whole way to sloy dam is very runnable at a good pace, but also very undulating. I think for the race I'll make good use of this section and try and make good time to the bottom of Ben Vorlich.
The climb up Ben Vorlich was hideously steep and the wind and driving rain started again so jackets and gloves were swiftly back on. It seemed an age to make any real progress so was a case of digging in for the long haul. I saw what looked like the descent route as we were heading for the summit and made a mental note. Really getting blasted by wind and horizontal hail now and we swiftly hit the summit cairn and retreated back towards the very steep descent to the dam.
The slope down is scarily steep and takes a bit of bottle to let yourself go on it. As we were going down I spotted a better route with less rocks and slightly easier going so will take that on race day. It was not ideal conditions for a recce as the clag was thick and we could only get glimpses of the hill when it cleared for a second or too. The slope finishes at the head of Loch Sloy dam and over and up towards the summit of Ben Vane.
The route up Ben Vane is complicated with crags to wind your way round and try and hold your line up. Once on the plateau before the final peak it is very easy to get lost and wander up the wrong gully. I hope I have this bit weighed off now as I have done it a few times in the clag and seem to hit the correct gully but always have doubts when on the plateau. The wind was unpleasant once on the summit and we had to make tracks for the Lag Uaine, a nice fast descent once the streams have been picked up and a nice zig zag down.
The rest of the race route is straight forward from here, just a matter of getting up Ben Ime and over Narnain but even in clag it's not difficult to find your way here. The weather was getting steadily worse however and once over the summit of Ben Ime the hail really hit us. I was very glad that I had chosen to wear a peaked cap as the hail was driving in to our faces as we descended and really stinging. I could feel it through the hat. Chris had one hit him in the eye ball and could see out of it for a few minutes. After this experience we decided to quit here and miss out Narnain and head back to the cars via the Narnain boulders / cobbler tourist track.
The day was not quite what we had in mind when planning it but we managed to see some of the route that is unfamiliar and hopefully come race day will help the sub 4hr attempt. The last time I ran this race was in poor conditions in a time of 4:13:23 so realistically sub 4 is achievable.
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