Petestack Blog

As one of the very few local hills of any real size I’d never been up, I’d long been intrigued by the prominent Corbett of Beinn Maol Chaluim which, despite standing proudly to the south of Bidean and being highly visible from the A82 between Glencoe Village and Achnacon, narrowly fails to make that silly Munro height, takes just as much effort to summit as its bigger neighbours and is surely therefore one of Glen Coe’s less-frequented peaks. So today I decided to run up it (if running’s not something of a misnomer for my progress over such a rough, largely pathless, course), traversing as close as possible to its visible skyline but turning the steep crags above the Bealach Fhionnghaill as necessary to the south. And that’s exactly what I did, taking sheep paths and flatter sections of river bank up the east side of the Fionn Ghleann, outflanking Creag Dhubh (an impressive crag of dripping rocks and turf that could be fun in a good winter) to the south and leaving the northern ridge just short of the Bealach Fhaolain to cut back west down Coire Garbh and cross the river to something more of a path (some human footprints on this one!) back north. A hard-won 6.6 miles and 3,200 ft that took over 2½ hours despite feeling strong after a day’s rest and not hanging about much beyond the time it took to snap a few (well, about 30) photos!

Been out on the hills this past couple of days, with yet another run on my ‘home ground’ of the central Mamores (surely my most trodden hills with the possible exceptions of the Ben and the Buachaille) followed by something new today.

Now, perhaps I’d have liked to go somewhere new yesterday, but I’d rather missed the boat in terms of travelling time by the time a grey morning started to give way to a clearing afternoon. So I headed back up the great zigzag of Coire na Ba to run over Stob Coire a’ Chairn and the Garbhanach/Gearanach ridge. Which comes in at round about 10.2 miles and 4,400 ft in just over 3 hours, which doesn’t sound that fast (and isn’t) but does allow for something of a slowdown over the light scrambling of the northern ridge and some photography on the way back as the mist started to lift.

With some splendid October sunshine today, I was keen to grab something new. But, being on holiday and surfacing typically late, not too far away. So I headed down towards Tyndrum (skipping the tight parking place near the private road to Auch Farm in favour of better parking and a slightly longer run in along the West Highland Way) with Beinn Mhanach in mind. Which, as the nearest Munro I hadn’t done, I’d been half thinking of saving (along with its subsidiary top of Beinn a’ Chuirn) for a relatively local and accessible final Munro/Top combination (so I’d like to get my final Top en route to my final Munro!), but was ultimately quite happy just to sweep up today because I’m not really quite at the stage of choosing my final peaks yet. Anyway, it’s a dashed long way in and out (c.5 miles each way on tracks you could do easily by bike), the distant views were superb and my legs were tiring on the way back because I’m probably not really quite strong enough for several days’ proper hill running on the trot right now. 14.3 miles and 3,700 ft in 3 hrs 24 mins, including a pretty slow trudge up the SW side of Beinn a’ Chuirn and a number of camera stops.

Might just add that the Auch Estate (in keeping with the current trend) have a most helpful notice about seasonal deer stalking activity, requesting the use of established hill paths, following prominent mountain ridges, following main watercourses when descending open hillsides and avoiding descents through corries, and marred only by the complete fading of their recommended/preferred routes from the accompanying map.

Today I posted my entry for the 2010 Cateran Trail Race. An attractive-sounding short ultra from the same ‘stable’ as the West Highland Way Race, and something that’s not altogether too late on 15 May to serve as a good final trial for the big one five weeks later. Sparing me the need to do anything quite so mindless as running the Lairig Mor four times in a day again!

So perhaps I’d have preferred another couple of weeks between them, but running both this year didn’t seem to hurt those who did so. Some of whom (you know who you are!) also ran the Highland Fling (which I’m not planning) three weeks before the Cateran and did very well in all three…

Anyway, it sounds friendly, it sounds good, I fancy it and maybe the May target will help keep me on track (assuming no December-long cough/cold things or climbing assessments to get in the way) for the WHW this time. So I posted the entry form. And then went for a wee hill run. :-)

So (after weeks of rain) we’ve got a glorious September Saturday, my arrangement to climb with Isi doesn’t seem to have worked out, the mower’s been returned to the shed in disgrace (won’t start), the rose on my weedkiller can is broken and I’m needing to get outside and do something…

So how about a proper hill run, and let’s see if Chris Ellis’s hamstring treatment is still working as well as it appeared to be last night (when I managed a 3.9 mile ‘Mamore Loop’ with no problems and, in what strikes me as a propitious omen, bumped into Chris at my very gate on the way home).

So (trying to set a record for the number of consecutive paragraphs legitimately starting with ‘so’?) I took the path with the monumental zig and zag up Coire na Ba to Na Gruagaichean and Binnein Mor, returning by Sgor Eilde Beag and An Cumhann for a total of 10.7 miles and 4,900 feet of ascent in just over 3 hrs 14 mins. Which might seem disappointing for a round I reckon should go in under 3 hours if fully fit but, at close to ‘double Naismith’ pace, isn’t really that bad for some afternoon/evening hamstring-rehabilitation fun.

So (don’t go there!) perhaps both legs were just starting to cramp a little as I got home, but I could hardly feel the hamstring. And I was disciplined about doing the stretches and icing, although I might point out that:

1. I’ve never been a great stretcher, tending to agree (or wanting to agree) with Bernd Heinrich’s charming quote (see foot of post) about antelopes stretching, but have to say it’s so obvious that Chris’s stretches are working that I’m not only going to keep doing them but would probably boil my head as well if Chris told me that would improve my fitness!
2. Clingfilming nappy bags of icy slush to your thigh isn’t just that easy, but sitting them on your chair seems to work well enough…

Had I remembered while writing Thursday’s post, I’d probably have added that Chris also gave me some instruction in cross-massaging the affected fibres and told me pulling my computer chair round my classroom with my feet was good for strengthening hamstrings. So what happens when the next pupil trying that one (NB we have other computer chairs so they don’t have to take mine!) has the audacity to excuse him/herself with ‘but, Sir, I was just strengthening my hamstrings’? ;-)

Must add that I’ve been finding the Memory-Map elevation and altitude profiles (from Memory-Map and Garmin Forerunner 305 data respectively) for my tracks quite interesting, with the negligible differences between them suggesting that, at least on open ground and real hills, the much-supposed inaccuracy/exaggeration of the GPS altitude readings is simply not a significant issue.

Have also arranged to go climbing at Polldubh with Johnny MacLeod tomorrow, so hopefully making the most of this cracking weekend that could yet (if some forecasts have it right) be the start of a mini Indian summer. But, before I sign off for tonight, here’s that favourite Heinrich passage that I’ll never be able to quote with quite my previous conviction again:

I also believe in antelopes. They would not have missed a trick when it comes to running speed and endurance. I had never seen or heard of an antelope who was flexible and did stretching, or who lifted weights for extra strength. I had never heard of one doing much more than eating and running.

From Why We Run (Bernd Heinrich, 2001)

Having been plagued by this persistent hamstring niggle all year when running (not so far an issue for climbing or walking) and seen it get obviously worse over the past fortnight, I went to see Chris Ellis (highly-regarded sports-specialist partner in our local GP practice) about it today. And no-one listening would have been in much doubt that I let Chris know when he’d located the troublesome spot!

So it might be a pain (and now the most persistent annoyance of my five years as a serious runner), but luckily things aren’t looking that bad yet. He’s given me some sensible hamstring stretches to do, told me to watch it uphill and not to sprint (not that I ever do)… and suggested a treatment involving nappy bags, clingfilm and slushy ice! And, since he’s also told me I can still run and West Highland Way Race 2010 is still realistic, I suppose I’d better just do what I’m told and make sure to follow his instructions…

Having a certain amount of time to kill with some rainy summer holiday days and an increasingly tidy house, I’ve got through three recently published and purchased running books over the past week.

The first, Running for My Life by Ray Zahab (published 2007), is a simple autobiographical account of one man’s journey from smoking and drinking youth to accomplished ultra runner, and makes a pleasant day’s read in a more humble Ultramarathon Man sort of way. Since finishing it, I’ve also watched a TV interview with Ray Zahab on the web and have to say that he comes across as a nice, unpretentious guy with laudable zeal to bring meaningful adventure to young people.

The second, Born to Run by Christopher McDougall (published 2009), is a gripping blend of natural history (humans evolving ‘to go running’?) and building action story (long distance racing with the Tarahumara) that’s closer to what’s possibly been my favourite running book of all (the hitherto incomparable Why We Run by Bernd Heinrich) than anything else I’ve read. So, despite the odd statement leaping out at me as needing checking (Peters ‘ten minutes under his own world-record pace’ after ten miles of the 1952 Olympic marathon?), I’d have to rate this alongside the Heinrich as fascinating, revelatory and uncommonly absorbing.

The third book, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami (published in Japanese in 2007 and English in 2008), is another personal memoir, but (as you’d expect of a celebrated novelist) given a more poetic twist than the Ray Zahab book. Which is not to say that it’s ‘better’, but just that Murakami’s writing not surprisingly comes across as more accomplished and polished.

Regardless of literary merit, however, where all three books ultimately work together is in stressing what a natural thing it is to run and making me just want to get out and run. Which has to be a good thing. :-)

This afternoon I put on my 2007 WHW Race top (the one I earned by running the race rather than sweeping the final stage) and set out to run my favourite section over the Devil’s Staircase to Altnafeadh and back as my own little personal tribute to Dario. And, while I’m by no means in race shape right now, my legs did feel that little bit lighter through thinking I’d better keep going and make a good job of it for him! So, when asked (as I reached the cairns at the top of the Devil’s on my way home) if I was going for a PB, I was able to reply that, no, I was a long way outside that but I was running today for a special reason, and explain what that was.

As soon as I was able to get a mobile signal after that (pretty well at the footbridge in the dip where you turn left towards the Penstock), I tried to text Ian because I felt like sharing. But perhaps I’ve got the wrong mobile number for him in my phone?

The camera was an afterthought in the sense that I backtracked from my front door on the way out to pick it up. But there are two pictures here, with the first taken at the start of the descent to Glen Coe on the outward leg and the second at the start of the descent to Kinlochleven on the way home. And I’d like to invite all my readers to look at them and spare a quiet moment’s thought for a man who changed lives.

While there have been many tributes to Dario published over the past few days and there’s only so much more I can add to them now, perhaps there’s still room here for a few thoughts of my own…

It was yesterday afternoon that I logged onto my computer down at my parents’ house to read the news on John Kynaston’s blog with stunned disbelief. And yesterday evening that I drove home to Kinlochleven up Loch Lomondside and much of the West Highland Way Race route thinking about Dario every mile of the way. A drive that I’ve done hundreds of times, but has never been the same since completing the race (a life-changing experience) in 2007 and will never be the same again after this. (If I could have turned the van off the road at the Devil’s Staircase and driven home over the hill I would, but will have to content myself with running that favourite section again for Dario ASAP!)

So what can I say that hasn’t already been said by others? Not much, but perhaps Dario’s five appearances in my 2007 Race Report might strike a chord with more than just me:

• it was good to meet organiser Dario Melaragni
• So this race is a true team effort in the competitive sense, but it’s also a staggering shared experience for absolutely everyone involved, and that’s not something any of us are likely to forget easily. From Dario and his team (without who our efforts would all also be for nothing) to those who turned up to cheer their runners home, I’m sure you’ll know what I mean if you were there…
• where Dario called me up to receive my finishers’ goblet with a memorable remark about my medical records being ready at the Kinlochleven checkpoint if required
• As I wrote to Dario that day, ‘it messes with your head as well as your body’, and perhaps nothing will ever be quite the same (in the best possible sense) again.
• didn’t Dario introduce the prizegiving with something about a room/hall full of winners?

Which should tell you that he was friendly, he was funny and he never stopped working for this race. He’d done it himself, knew what it meant to so many folk, counted them as ‘family’ (yes, the famous WHW Race Family!) and had the personal touch for every one of them. And he truly believed that he had a hall full of winners after every race.

Now he’s gone, just like that, on what was supposed to be a fun day out with friends on Lochnagar and the neighbouring hills. Leaving behind a very big hole for such a wee guy. And nothing will ever be quite the same again. But he’ll never, ever be forgotten!