Highland Fling 25/04/09
We are waiting on word from any of our runners (Graham, Richard and Ben) who hopefully survived the 53 hilly miles. These pictures are from the finish line and maybe in due course a report will follow.
Richard's report...
I’d been under the impression that the West Highland Way was a walk for wimps – a flat, granddad-ready path for those who couldn’t go up hills to at least get out amongst them. Folk had spoken about Conic Hill as the one climb in the first half, and I was expecting the rest to be like running up the Water of Leith. It would be hard to be more wrong….
Ok the first section was fine. Except for the midges at Milgnavie Station – who had an extra half hour to feast on the collected bare flesh as Ben wanted to warm up. I don’t warm up for many races – and certainly not for an ultra! And then there was the psychologically challenging bit of lining up in the “under 11 hours” box whilst Ben went to join the elite at the front, and Graham was somewhere in between us. The girls and really old men had started at 6, and the relay teams started at 8. So there was no huge bottleneck at the start, and I settled almost immediately into the pace I’d wanted – 9:30 for the first mile, including walking up the first hill. I’d not planned to walk so early – but everyone in front was doing so, so there was no choice. The first 12 miles to Drymen is just “ordinary” running – at least four miles along an old railway line, and three along country lanes. Everyone is still full of beans and keen to chat, and we are still in little bunches. The morning is cool and clear, and life is good. Around mile 2, I see Graham in the distance ahead of me, and put in the two quickest miles of the day to catch up. Quick is of course relative – 7:53 and 8:01. But having caught him, life is even better, since he can do all the navigating, and this is a fair price to pay for going a little quicker than I’d planned. We do the first half marathon in around 1 hr 51 mins.
After Drymen comes 3-4 miles of gentle uphill forest roads and paths leading to Conic Hill. I chose to walk for the mile and a half up – as do most in my part of the race, though Graham disappears over the top. I walk down too, as this is hill race steep – but no one else seems too. I catch Graham at Balmaha car park, which is the first food stop, and he has taken a serious fall on the way down Conic – not good with another 30 miles to go.
Balmaha to Rowardennen is 7 miles of good woodland trail running, undulating with some tough short climbs, and one brief beach section! For almost all of this we run amongst an ever-changing file of runners. There is still plenty of chat – it is getting warmer; and the woods are full of bluebells and primroses. We go through the marathon point around 4 hrs 20: more importantly, this is half way!
At Rowardennan I get my eating wrong. At Rotherham in December, I had craved salt and chocolate. That was a cold, wet day. This is a warm, dry one. Leaving the car park my stomach is rebelling against the chocolate and salt. Fortunately Graham is having a similarly bad time – so we start off very slowly. Rowardennan to Inversnaid is another very runnable section, mainly along pleasant forest roads which meander gently up and down the edge of the loch. My stomach settles down, whilst Graham’s injuries stiffen up, so half way along he “encourages” me to press on.
Leaving Inversnaid is where I have my inevitable long moment of despair. The next three miles or so are very technical – narrow paths, lots of rocks, lots of tree roots, lots of up and down and a little scrambling, which is very hard when your legs won’t open very wide. I’m on my own for all of this, and managing just over three miles an hour. How can I be going so slowly and not be being overtaken? Perhaps I’m lost. I’m certainly feeling very sorry for myself! Finally I’m overtaken by a gaggle of five runners who are more aggressively breaking into a run whenever a twenty-yard clear stretch appears on the path, and I successfully tag onto the back of the file. Then we reach the top of the loch, and almost immediately the path improves dramatically. Three miles further on is the last aid station.
I’d set myself a “pessimistic” schedule on the basis that I like to feel I’m ahead of where I want to be – but on the basis that the course was flat. So it was odd to find I ran almost exactly to it – 3 hrs to Balmaha, 4.5 to Rowardennan, 6 to Inversnaid, 7.5 to Benn Glas. You can tell I like round numbers!
The last stage is 12 miles divided into three chunks. All are on good paths. The first is along the side of the valley toward Crianlarich, either alongside a stream or largely contouring. The second is up and over the hills into the next valley. And the last four miles or so are along the flat valley floor into Tyndrum. At this stage I’m walking up each and every incline, and even when running only making 5 miles an hour pace. But I’ve got in touch with the middle of the pack of 6 AM starters, so I seem to be going forward through the field, and there is usually someone else on the horizon to run down. I can start to think about a finish time, and put pressure on myself to speed up. It feels like I’m going a good pace, and I gain five places on this long run in – but looking at the garmin my final “sprint” means the last five miles take me 52 minutes. Fortunately I never feel that the ten hour mark is achievable – the race is advertised at 53 miles, but the garmin tells me I’ve only done 52.3 by the end, so I’ve been expecting another six/seven minutes to go. But I do manage to go eight minutes quicker than Rotherham (in theory a shorter race – but I got so lost I ran further there), to finish in 10 hours, 2 minutes, and what turns out to be 53rd place.
Getting to the end is just a huge relief. Someone presses a cold beer into one hand, and a bottle of champagne into the other whilst I stand around feeling rather bemused. There’s a free plate of stovies – for the non-Scots, a cross between beef stew and mashed potato – which is far more welcome. Ben arrives with a cup of tea – which is also much more the thing. And it’s OK just to stand around, pretending to look for Graham, but in reality because standing around is all I can cope with. After about an hour I decide Graham must have dropped out, and wander off to my hostel – where the Mainland Mules (who we know from the Heb 3 races) feed and water me further. The hostel’s dining room looks over the course – and I’m just in time to see Graham jog past with a cheery wave: I should have known he just doesn’t stop. I eat something like three full meals in the five hours or so before bed.
If you wonder about the guy in the photo, this was a relay runner I’d come across about four miles from the end – stopped and plaintively asking for food. I don’t think he was used to the idea of eating iced fruit cake and chocolate raisins during a race, but it was enough to get him going again and he caught me up about half a mile from the finish. And I am a Sunderland fan….
The race is extremely well organised from start to finish – very necessary given my mental state in the later stages. And the weather has been near-perfect. Blue skies, sunshine and a cooling breeze to keep the midges away. I’m in a better state than I’ve any right to be. Nasty blood blisters on one foot, and I’ve done something to what I think is my right hip flexor. Nor can I climb over the sill to get into the car the next morning. But already I’m beginning to be convinced when I tell myself I actually enjoyed it.
Worth saying to anyone thinking of doing an ultra that the training I did was simply what I would do for a marathon. But also worth saying that the Devil of the Highlands – the other half of the West Highland Way – is in my view a much easier place to start!
Report Richard Dennis
Website, photos and results here
