Run 48:00 [3] *** 4.0 km (12:00 / km)
spiked:8/9c
I'm not sure this really qualifies as a 'run' as I wasn't running for very much of it. My destination was the Trossachs, home of a WRE in March, running some controls from a course Godders gave me. I'd been warned it was hard going, and it was, but I don't think I can blame jet lag for my slow progress (although I may be able to blame seasonal vegetation, of which more below).
It's a steep area, fearsomely so in places, with a fair number of knolls and associated gully formations and a fair number of cliffs on the sides of the knolls (which are not as prominently mapped as one might anticipate). Reminds me a bit of some pre-alpine terrain I've run on in Switzerland and Austria. The thing which made it really difficult, though, was that a lot of the less steep areas (which would otherwise have been the optimal route choice) were overgrown with bracken which was anything from waist-high to head-high. I gather not much of this bracken is there in winter or early spring, but would be interested to hear more from those who know better. Glad to see what this terrain looks like (and also that I don't have to run on it every week).
The rest of the day was spent on the west side of the ranges as far north as Inverness (taking advantage of my knowledge that the weather was likely to be best on the west side today, and the east side tomorrow). Nice country although the peaks were under cloud. Also rather on the tourist track with plenty of buses, and foreign-plated cars, in evidence (although the latter is not always an indicator of being on the tourist track - I spotted a campervan with Austrian plates in Kalumburu last year).
My attention was also grabbed by a one-paragraph news item in the Guardian to the effect that Westminster trading standards officers had closed down an impotence clinic in London after undercover officers found they recommended treatments without medical examination and failed to produce any evidence for the theraputic claims made for their nasal spray. The offending business, was, of course, none other than our very own AMI: Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi Oi Oi! (The fact that the Westminster local council has apparently succeeded where the ACCC and sundry state authorities have failed for years also suggests that Australia's consumer-protection laws could use improving).