Petestack Blog

A carefully planned double act today, combining a trip to Dingwall to take Fly’s engine to Brae Classics for blasting and repainting with a run over Ben Wyvis, and everything going like clockwork till my five-week-old windscreen got chipped (fortunately nothing like as badly or conspicuously as the one it replaced) by a flying stone somewhere down Loch Lochyside on the way home!

Not much to say about the engine here except that the original paintwork’s not very robust (repaint should be better), with the photos not surprisingly saying more about a unit that sat in a laid-up yacht with broken dehumifier for several years than one that’s only done three seasons (2002, 03 and 05) afloat…

And so to the run, with Ben Wyvis proving ideal at this stage of my WHW Race preparation not just for its proximity to Dingwall but for being the sprawling mass of clean, springy ridge terrain and gentle gradients (giving me 18.2 miles of delightfully easy going for only 4,800 ft of ascent) that possibly makes it the best summer running hill I’ve tried yet. So of course I’m ‘tapering’ now but, having already cut this week’s Tuesday to Thursday mileage and taken Friday evening off to try the new mower that brought the curse of the rain with its order and delivery several weeks ago, today’s run was both planned and needed. Some indecision on the descent, perhaps, with my instinct that straight off Tom a’ Choinnich looked the way to go fighting my curiosity to see why Irvine Butterfield’s book gives the more roundabout route off Carn Gorm (you can even see the wiggle in my track as I wavered on Carn Gorm itself)… to which I can only add that instinct seems right in this case with the ‘Butterfield’ route adding nothing but the only boulder field on the mountain, a path that’s taking you further and further in the wrong direction and a longer bog-trot to get back to your starting point. But not to worry when that bonus boulder-hopping practice and boggy mileage could yet prove crucial in realising my big race aspirations (yes, I’m joking) and, notwithstanding the unforeseen, unwanted and unavoidably unlucky sting-in-the-tail glass chip, it was still a great day out!