Training Log Archive: SarahD

Feughside fun with JS. From Finzean out first to Clachnaben. Sun came out and it seemed like a nice day for a while at least. Aven crossing was a bit of an early thigh deep chiller but not too scary. By the top of Clachers it was pretty wild and barely felt safe scrambling onto the summit. Then it was a wicked headwind out towards MB - some serious resistance training going on. After a few km we picked a line to take us back down to the Aven and then across to Peter Hill, but on reaching the river found some crazy turbulent white water that didn’t look promising to cross. Made our way upstream through deep heather until we got to a point where it looked less menacing and managed to cross with water at full leg depth. Steep climb up through the heather from there, at which point I realised I hadn’t eaten anything, but after a quick stop picked myself up enough to get to the hill top, aided now by a wicked tailwind! Returned by a new to me path down to Wood of Easter Clune and track / road back from there.
All round tough stuff. Was really tired from the outset and got seriously dragged round by J, but it felt great to have ground it out. Definitely wouldn’t have done that on my own today!

Wander round the currently drained Queen's Loch before lunch - saw a kingfisher as well as 2 heron. Kingfisher diving into the remaining narrow outflow channel :-)

In search of a wee adventure, recognition of a rubbish forecast for the weekend, and a nice night with an almost full moon I headed out for Broad Cairn at 7:45. Main track along LM and then up the zig-zag. Wicked cold wind on the top. Had half a plan to return by Dubh Loch, but I didn’t feel up for it in the end so returned by the lighting strike.
Cracking night and was able to run with the torch off for quite a bit of it. Disturbed a huge flock of divers (?) on the far end of the loch. The noise when they all took off was incredible:-) Plenty of deer and a hare caught by my light too.

Out by Pitmurchie to Tarland Rd, Queens View and back by Aboyne. Chill. Enjoyed that.

Chill Dess bowl then back by Pitmurchie. Soaking up some vit D rays.

DNC #1 Balmedie. Feeling rusty with the nav as expected but there were occasional flashes of competence in amongst it all. Not sure how motivated I’m going to be for DNC this winter but enjoyed it tonight.

DR @ GT. Decent w-u then 4x3’hills up the tarmac road with jog back recovery. Meant to be 6 but I wasn’t feeling it tonight and was well off the back on all of them, so bailed and had a nice extended w-d jog with SR instead :-)

Green Hill bike trails with RB, then on to White Hill. Nice bit of single track off GH initially but it disappeared into the heather after a while. The plan beyond WH was to pick up tracks shown on the 1:25 OS back through the forest, except that they had now disappeared into thick spruce and or gorse! Eventually managed to get onto a forest ride which in turn became the track, but only after some serious green fight night nav - lovely! Good chat when we weren't fighting the forest. Hopefully R will run with me again....

C • :-) 1

C • :-) 1