A stunning day oot!

I really enjoyed today’s run, a wee change to the original plan, Glenrothes 50km on the Sunday, it was cancelled due to a lack of entrants. I was quite disappointed, especially when five folk I know said “Bummer, I was gonna do that!” Well, why didn’t you commit earlier! Probably still not enough entrants but it might have helped! I use the 50km as a good test of fitness and I do enjoy it. I find it puzzling that an ultra is cancelled due to lack of interest when ever other one is over subscribed!

Ok, new plan, big run on the WHW. The club has a big outing to the Cateran Trail, the wee 23 miler and relay! I was asked would I do it? “No” was my reply, I wanted a big run, but when the comments changed to “You should do the Cateran!” I dug in my contrary heels, and would not succumb to the bullying, but I did concede that I would benefit from a fast “shorter” run and changed my plan from running from Bridge of Orchy to Fort William to just stopping at Kinlochleven. There is no doubt that the Cateran trail is a good run and I may do it some day but I’m no trail trollop, my heart belongs to the WHW so that’s where I was heading.

Pauline was going to drive and have a chill out day, just what she needed after a stressful week at work and trying to focus on her race next week. She flung me out at Bridge of Orchy and said “Bugger Off!” I stood at the start of the hill in racing pose, said “Ready, steady, go!” and set off at a stroll, well, I’d just got out the car, my Achilles tendons felt tight, and I’ve just had a heavy mileage week running my seventh day in a row. Once I loosened off I ran the whole way, a novelty running all of Rannoch Moor even up the steep bit to whatisname memorial cairn although I did have a few photo stops and at one point I stopped just turn a full circle to take in the vastness of my view and all I could hear were the birds, the breeze and my own breath.

I phoned Pauline to say I can see Kingshouse, I just put my phone away, och, there she is, she’d walked up the hill to meet me. We went along the path to the Ski Centre, the new checkpoint for the WHW race, and not much of an add-on really, and when you consider the route improvements, it’ll be Even Stevens’!
I walked most of the Devil’s Staircase and stopped to let four guys go past on bikes, one stopped for a wee blether, they’d started in Inverness, came along the Great Glen Way and now heading down the WHW, he knew me from last years Glenrothes 50km, he was a colleague of Bob Allison! I bounded and skipped the rough rocky path down to the steep track that heads into Kinlochleven, I came down that at a fair pace but not hard enough to trash my quads. Pauline came up to bridge at the end of the pipes and finished the run with me. Just as we were going through the wood we met Peter Duggan.

I was pleased to have run it all apart from the climb out of Bridge of Orchy and the Devil, and I felt good and strong the whole way and was a bit disappointed when I stopped, I was itching to carry on over Lairig Mor, but I’ll save that for another day. I’ve covered all of the WHW to Kinlochleven during this years training and if I don’t manage to get the last miles in I’d like to say I could probably do that last bit in my sleep, highly unlikely, even though I’ll be heading into the second night with no sleep I’m sure the blisters round my tootsies and screaming quads won’t let me nod off! Come race day/days what will be, will be and I will manage to run from the Braveheart car park. It’s tradition!