Training Log Archive: ba-ba

Had a fantastic cooked breakfast in Troon before heading north to Loch Lomond. Had a shuffle to try and ease the legs. Got caught in some shitty forestry work.

Event: UKA Inter-Counties Fell Running Championships - Witton Park
 

Motored through the Crinan canal to Lochgilphead - it was made so the fishing fleet could get to sea without negotiating the Mull of Kintyre so it's a fitting escape route. It pisses it down all day - despite reportedly being nice everywhere else in the country! Adam leaves half way so he can get back for work on Monday. It's quite a way back to Troon against the wind and I spend a lot of it asleep. However last couple of hours in the still and dark, crusing at 5+ knotts is quite magical up on deck. We hit port at around midnight before the best shower ever and leaving our soaked kit to dry - thankfully it's freshwater from the rain so we dry out quickly!

Event: Scottish Island Peaks Race
 

The winds to Jura were calm and we had the fastest sail. It must have been amazing on deck cutting through the field, James said we passed 18 boats and we landed on Craighouse pier in 6th. The clag was down to about 300ft at a maximum. No views from the papas today! Even with nipping to the toilet, the kit-check in the hall was much smoother than on Mull. 2.7km along the road before striking up into the mist, through some scratty woodland, over a fence and onto a very boggy path towards the Paps. The long drag on heavy gruond dragged on and Adam took my pack. We passed a pair of slow runners and it took ages for their heavy breathing to disappear from behind me - I was in a bit of a bad way. Over the lump before Pap 1 before striking straight up to meet the race descent route for the last couple of hundred metres of ascent. We tag the summit and on our way down pass a pair heading up.

Down into the col and the clag has lifted a bit, but the top 300m of each Pap is still shrouded. I'm making a note of rough times here and carry my pack up #2, The pair behind us pass us slowly on the summit ridge of Pap 2 - they turn out to be Manny Gorman and Brian Bonniman who finish with the fastest running time in the whole race. 32mins from col to summit of Pap 2. 32 mins from summit 2 to summit 3. Then drop off and all downhill back to the boat. 32 mins from summit down to the loch - maybe a better line could be found here! Then across the bog and down to 3 arch bridge before the pound along the road back to Craighouse - it's tough but I'm glad I've done it before.

Manny and Brian run 35mins quicker than anyone else on the leg. We have the 4th best time but are on a par with Wardy and Rich (Clockwork) and the Helm Hill boys (Nunatak) even with me feeling rough early on - I ate more than normal for breakfast, but this isn't enough after 6+ hours on the hill 13h previously!

We get on the boat and sail out of Craoghouse. Martin comes down and tells us the weather forecast for the Mull of Kintyre is too much for our small boat - to paraphrase 'if you like the taste of vomit and the sound of breaking fibre glass we can go round'. He seems very apologetic and leaves the final decision up to us. We tell him we're fell runners, not sailors! We abandon the race and sail to Crinan near the top of the Kintyre peninsula, where we moor for the night and have a few drinks in the hotel.

The Scottish Islands Peaks Race.
4 miles on Oban
24 on Mull, including Ben More.
14 on Jura, including the Paps.
18 on Arran including Goat Fell.
A sprint along the jetty to the race office at Troon.

I'd been wanting to do this for a couple of years and had looked at potential runners last autumn before forgetting about it a bit. My friend and former Pennine team-mate Adam Perry, 2-time Fellsman winner (well, 1 and a half time then...) and 2-time veteran of SIPR had asked me in January if I fancied it and I bit his arm off. I was a bit worried about the gap between us (at the Hodgson relays last year Adam's time - teamed with Simon Coldrick of cow-attack 'fame' - had (just) beaten OJ and Neil's time), especially in longer distance races. However he seemed happy with me (he's very encouraging...) so who was I to say no!

Arrived Oban Thursday afternoon with the Nunatak runners (sounds like a mortal combat finishing move involving a wimple, is actually an inuit word: an exposed, often rocky element of a ridge, mountain, or peak not covered with ice or snow within (or at the edge of) an ice field or glacier) and an overloaded car. Hit Tesco for hill food before kit faff. Adam was pretty much ready to go but, as I had everything for 3 weeks away in the car I had a faff the best of SPOOK would be proud of

Our vessel between the islands was a 30ft J92 called Moby J. It's skipper, Martin Pound, a former Navy commander, was one of those people that has your insstant trust when you meet them. This was his 4th year of peaks races and he had spent the last couple of months sailing her up from Portsmouth way. Our crew was Steve and James who we met, along with land support Jane and Guy Pounder (no sniggering, we're all adults here) in a restaurant in Oban. Guy was driving my car to Troon, and Jane had cooked all of our (amazing) food for the weekend - loads of frozen bags of stew and pasta dishes, quiches, mini quiches, sausages, mozarella burgers and 5 brilliant cakes - millionarie shortbread, sea-sickness busting ginger cake, Simnel cake with loads of marzipan, Parkin and Flapjacks.

A few beers in the club house chatting to runners and sailors alike. Sailors discussing boats over a beer is like Fell Runners discussing shoes - only much much more expensive. The to bed, 5 of us in our little 30-footer. I was blocked into the stern but managed to extricate myself for a piss in the night without waking James up or dragging my bollocks across his face. Result!

Spent the morning chilling out in the sun, looking at Ben More poking out above Kerera before a little warm up before the race got under way.

Leg 1 of the SIPR on a nice little hill course around Oban. At this point there's no point pushing it as there's big stuff to come, but you do want to give your sailors the chance to get out near the front before it goes completely mental. There were 42 (or was it 44) boats entered this year, so the start was entertaining with runners in dingys trying to get out to their boat whilst avoiding other boats. Adam was at the front for the first part of the race with me not far behind. We pushed a little bit on the last 500m of road and crossed the line in 3rd before heading back the way we'd come to meet Martin in the dingy, who rowed us out - a sailor is good for this as they can tell the difference between 40-odd big white fibre glass things with big white flappy things on them. We crossed the start line of the boat race in 4th - there was a southerly so the bigger boats could pick up runners and get going easily. Moby J is small and thrives in light or tricky wind conditions.

I am really disappointed that I have been let down by technology here and there is no GPS trace of our epic on Mull.

The sail from Oban-Mull had been a bit quicker and choppier than normal. Having spent 10 choppy minutes below deck putting on sailing gear as we left Oban, I spent all of the sail feeling very green. Cake and a burger was nibbled but we didn't get much of a proper meal in, which was the initial plan. However it was a nice day, albeit cold on the water.
The good weather of Oban had disappeared by the time we reached Salen. We got ashore and the 5min time-out for kit check seemed like a rush. We set off along the road having to stop between us for shoe laces, wees and rocks in shoes, However we set a good pace along the 7km of road and along the track to CP1, with several teams passed. We got off the hard-pack and went well up to the ridge. The drizzle had now been persistent for about 30mins so we put waterproofs on for heading into the mists on Ben More - we were both wearing vests still. I decided to get my map out, only to find I had all the maps for the race still - sea sickness not allowing me to sort myself out on the boat (should have sorted it last night!). Faffed with the maps (printed on A4) so the Mull one was showing, but it got very wet and was now pretty much useless. I decided Ad could nav. As he's been up here before and has more Scottish hill experience I was happy we'd be OK. My map and compass went in my chest pocket.

We traversed to the E of the summit and scrambled out way up onto a ridge. Compass check showed both were pointing the correct way. Turned S just to check we weren't on the minor summit (vis was 50m max, it was windy and raining. Better safe than sorry) before retracing our steps N to the actual summit (CP2). Leave the tag and, even with the wrong turn check Adam's pleased with the line up and general progress - about 2:15 to the summit I think.

We now have 2 CPs - a stream junction then col, both at ~800m to guide us a safe route off the summit. 'Good, 30-40mins and we'll be off the shitty top and back in the safety of the valley' Another team head off into the mist NWish. Ad takes a bearing and we head off about 40 degrees different to the S. 'They're on a direct line, this one avoids the scree'. Adam soon takes a bit of a fall, gets up and checks his compass again. 'This way' he says, pointing slightly off from our initial bearing. 2.5 weeks down the road I'm a bit hazy on details now, but I do know we don't find the control. Adam's continually checking map and compass and between us we're making the map fit, initially to the area around the control and then, when it becomes obvious we're lost, to different slopes on the flanks of Ben More.
We bump into another pair and have a chat. They don't look too good, but I know we don't either. I'm shivering and chattering. They head uphill to the summit but we've (again) made the map fit. We've found a nice grassy corrie with a stream in it - this must be the stream with our control on it! Down and up twice, including a tumble for me. No control. Fuck. We contour around again, Adam's compass directing us, and soon hit a big bouldery scree slope. Cold, tired and a bit worried we come to the conclusion that best plan is to find the summit again. ~300m straight up a boulder field.

We pop out at a cairn we recognise from when we first hit a summit ridge. We've just come up the bit that, 90+mins ago I classed as 'don't like the look of that slope'. Back up to the summit cairn, a lot more tags on the CP now. Adam check his map and compass, which is spinning around. 'I don't know ' he proclaims. I look at him and it's the most worried I've ever been on a hill. It's cold, wet, windy and we can see fuck all. The strongest runner I know is looking like I've never seen anyone before - mentally and physically exhausted. I take the map, get my compass out and set a bearing. We're keeping moving and getting off the hill, and 1 more attempt at CP3. Out of the summit cairn and we hit a track. Didn't Martin say something about following the tourist track initially? Yes, he did, I remember now! Careful following of the bearing and Adam says this looks familiar - but then again he said that nearly 2 hours ago when we first left the summit! However we soon hit a stream. Follow it down and it doesn't quite match Adam's 1:50k map (which I'm now carrying). I suddenly get very nervous and check over a hillock away from the stream before continuing along the stream. Control! I don't really do emotion (any more) but this is the closest I've been to crying in a long time. We're off the top, we have the control, weather is relatively OK here and we're going to be OK!

The next CP looks a short distance on a 1:50k map but it takes quite a while contouring around. We pass a few other teams before dropping into the valley from the Col. It takes ages to get down to CP5 (which was also CP1). We stop to get some of our emergency chocolate in us before the 11km of trail and road back to the boat. I feel remarkably stong on the trail. Once on the road I bungee to Adam. To begin with it's more psychological and the bungee stays slack for a few kms before I allow Adam to take some of the strain. Approaching Salen and we can tell the weather at sea is much nicer. A shout to the boat and a knackered row out and we're safe. Well, as safe as you can be on a boat. Adam check his compass and realises it's not pointing north at all. Martin also tells us he forgot to tell us about a stonking great magnetic anomaly under the Ben More summit. We applogise profusely to the sailors, demolish an amazing cheesy courgetty pasta and we're in our sleeping bags for a low-wind, smooth sail to Jura.

I was very aware of exposure and danger on the top. We lost about 2h and it was pretty dicey. Thankfully we're both strong and pulled through. Another pair had to be air-lifted off, that heli pilot must be mental if it was near the summit!

My map preparation (or lack of) was undoubtedly part of our undoing, along with my perceived navigational inadequacies - when with more experienced runners I am far too happy to be passive when I should trust myself more.

Spectating Caw with Alf. He got very excited so I took him over the other side on a shortened Dunnerdale route