Highland Fling Relay

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.

Montane Highland Fling

Montane Highland Fling Pics

The Fling was not something I was thinking about running until Sarah talked me round some months ago. With not much training under my belt due to injury I still felt optimistic. Two weeks ago I ran the Highlander Mountain Marathon coming in 5th on the A class, and no sign of the injury, so I thought ok lets go for a good time in the Fling. I set my sights on sub 9 hours and worked out what splits I'd need to achieve that. Hoping for a rainy overcast day, as I don't do well in the heat, I was pleasantly surprised by the rainy start at 0400 on Saturday morning, this was not to last. After waving Sarah, Ann and Ross off at the 0600 start and Stevie B away at 0700, it was my turn at last.


With stomach churning in trepidation of the 53 miles that lay ahead and the pace I was aiming to set, the race got under way, before I knew it I was running with the leading pack flying through Mugdock park and on our way to Drymen, averaging 7.3 min/miles. Conic hill flew past and on the descent I could feel my quads complaining which I wasn't expecting until at least half way. Checkpoint at Balmaha, fill up bottles, stock up on gels and banana cake, crack on ! No time to waste. The next section is a good trail but pretty undulating and I found it tough going. Thinking about nothing other than the next checkpoint I was just focusing on maintaining the pace, lots of encouragement from the vets as I passed really helped keep the momentum. It was good to hear Claire, Julia and Andrew's familiar shouts of encouragement as I approached Rowardennan and the half way point in just under 4hrs.


Quads were v.sore now and it was hot, not a good combination, and I was only half way. Focus, think only about the next checkpoint, this was what I kept telling myself. One foot in front of the other, off I go. Maintain the pace but don't go mad up the hills. The next bit is a quad killer and mine were already dead. I struggled over boulders and up down steep slopes trying to get to Beinglas in around 6.5 hrs, but I could see this was not going to happen. Finally Beinglas appeared after what seemed an eternity and I could see Sarah waving at me from the checkpoint. She was about to leave but waited while I grabbed some food and we set off together on the final leg. Running now was truly a painful experience, and I managed a walk/run over the last 13 miles. The heat was cranked up full now and the lack of wind didn't help. I reached the finish line feeling quite emotional and also very sick. The heat had taken it's toll and my legs could no longer function as nature intended. I was a mess. Over 10 hours of running and an hour over my target. Sarah on the other hand had paced it well and made the ceilidh in the evening while I had no choice but to lye down in the tent and drink water all night.


Would I do it again ? Maybe, I'd still like to get sub 9.

Highlander Mountain Marathon 2010

This years Highlander Mountain Marathon was revealed as Gairloch, a beautiful location in the NorthWest of Scotland, a real gem. The weather for the weekend was to be great if a little hot for our taste.
I was running with my brother-in-law Tim whom I started running mountain marathons with in 2007, our first one being the LAMM, so I knew we had a good chance of doing well especially as we had won the B course last year. The A course however has a lot of stiff competition. The Friday night was spent at the Great Sands campsite, a nice place to go with the kids, having a few beers and chilling before the weekends epic efforts.
Saturday morning came in the blink of an eye and before we knew it we had collected our map and checkpoints and told that we could hit them in any order.... first challenge of the day, pick a good route. So a good ten minutes were spent marking up maps and choosing routes between them all. Time to go, under a blue sky we set off into the wilderness that surrounds gairloch. The views were awesome and everywhere we looked was blue sky and blue lochans. Navigation was going well and we were hitting the points with no trouble, the only problem seemed to be Tim's shoes which had no grips left on the sole and he was a slippin and a slidin all over the place. The first day went well until about 2/3rds of the way round I was struck by cramp caused by the 19 degrees and lack of salts. Tim gave me some electrolyte powder and I recovered enough to bash on to the finsh in just over 6 hrs 24. A quick look at the results revealed that Tim Higginbottom nad Chris Near had trotted round in less than 5 hrs, astonishing.
Day 2 dawned after a poor nights sleep feeling slightly queasy. Must have been the heat. Navigation was a lot harder today but we coped admirably and managed to hit the points without too much fuss, after a little blunder at the very first one. At least we read the instructions unlike some of the teams in front of us and realised that the controls must be hit in the order stated. A hard day saw us back in 5.5 hrs and very tired. The leaders again had put nearly 2 hrs into our time, super human.
We finished 5th overall and were happy with that considering the level of competition. This event is brilliant and very well organised, one to do for sure.

Photos

KINTAIL 09 - LAMM

What a fantastic weekend, great weather and no midges. A nice cool breeze helped us maintain a good pace all weekend. The midcamp was superb if a little bumpy for sleeping on with an OMM sleeping mat, not the comfiest thing to lie on in the world at 5mm thick.

Finished the C course day 1 in 26th place and made it in to the chasing start. Considering the levels of competition I felt it was a good effort all round. Day 2 went even better and with a couple of navigation errors thrown in we managed to pull up to 23rd.
I hope next years LAMM is as scenic and runnable as this years. Loved it !

Getting started

Just having a glass of red, while I set this blog up ...........