I was washing pots when it happened. A good bit of craic round a campsite sink. Them telling me how tired they were, me encouraging them that there wasn’t far to go. And so they asked me whether I’d done it before. I hesitated a moment before telling them I’d done most of it, but didn’t finish. They asked where I stopped and, on hearing Kinlochleven, looked at me with something approaching pity. “Why would you stop with only one day left? Were you injured? In too much pain?” The whole adventure flashed before my eyes. The dusky run to Drymen, Loch Lomond by moonlight, the long slog across Rannoch Moor and the struggle over the Devil’s Staircase. The seemingly infinite sense of possibility. Milngavie to Kinlochleven in one spontaneous run, rinsing out my body in the pursuit of a twenty-four hour completion. I shrugged and gave a wan smile.... View Article
September 22, 2022,
by Pete
About once a year or so, I conduct a highly scientific experiment: which is stronger, my body or granite? I never plan when this experiment is going to happen but I know immediately when it does. 4km into the Ring of Steall last weekend, granite extended its lead to three nil. I’m hoping it’s a best of three kind of competition and we can call it quits now. I’d taken my running poles moments earlier to help push up Sgurr an Iubhair but they’d spent most of their time clutched redundantly in one hand while I navigated bogs and stone. I got my toe on the edge of a big rock and then, without hands to pull-up, I slipped off it and my shin bounced down the granite edge. A hand steadied my rear. A marshal quipped that the person behind and I were now an item. I just wondered... View Article
Totally sensible and not at all insane ultra marathons with strangers… It started, as all good stories should, on the side of a Munro. With three days of thunder storms expected to start at noon, the only sensible thing to do was to try and get a couple of summits under the belt before then. Having tagged Stob Coire Raineach, I started across the ridge to Stob Dubh only to find someone else had the same idea. We got chatting and our individual short runs became a six hour day of mountains and valleys. Every step seemed to give a new vista, a breathtaking highlights reel of what Scotland can offer. Camping in the same spot, we made plans to sit out the bad weather and do our normal day jobs in a pub the next day. Of course, laptops open, the occasional chat may* have happened about what to... View Article
It was wet. I remember that much. Rain thumping on the canvas like a regiment of drummers beating a heady tattoo. North of the tent lay the brooding mass of Liathach. I sat, crouched over my phone, watching YouTube videos of the traverse. It’s hard to know where to start describing Liathach. It’s the kind of mountain legends are made from and, from the road it towers over, it looks impregnable. It rises at what seems an impossible angle, more fortress than hill. Songs have been written about her and the An Fasarinen pinnacles are infamous in their own right. I never did get to climb her that first trip to Torridon. I’d ran Beinn Alligin on arrival. It’s a steep monster in its own right, home to the wonderfully named Eag Dhubh nah-Eigheachd – ‘the black gash of the wailing’. After that the weather closed in. Liathach’s pinnacles look... View Article
September 23, 2019,
by Pete
Flower of Scotland. It’s unlikely I’ll ever hear it again without emotion welling up inside. It’s Saturday and we’re strung out along the northern slope of Stob Coire a’ Chàirn. Only moments before I’d lost my footing on what should be an easy scramble around An Garbhanach. For a second I’m suspended between this life and the next, or at least it felt that way. I stare down at a 1500ft drop and my tired and cramping legs grapple to find their hold. A minute later and I’m back to normal but my nerves have frayed. That felt too close. It’s then, starting to attack the summit climb, that the silent concentration of runners meets with the stirring sound of the pipes. We push on, intensely focussed on the next step. Power hiking up, grabbing onto rocks to support or propel. As I summit I thrust a fist into the... View Article
