Stephen and myself set off for Crainlarich at 7am and got there about 8.30am. The plan for the day was to go on the West Highland Way from Crainlarich to Inveronon.... and back again. It was both our first attempts at beyond marathon distance but we were both pretty clued up on what strategy to take and what we were doing. So it was to run the flats and downs. If we were runnning for 15 minutes then we would walk unless we knew there was a long up coming up and then walk the ups. After a cold start we started our climb up to join the WHW which was about a kilometre which was really a warm up and it wasn't long till we were running in t-shirts. When we joined the WHW it continued to climb and then dropped a fair bit down to the road. We ate a sandwich pretty much every hour and took it out of each others bags while we were walking so that we kept moving forward. The first checkpoint was Tyndrum, then Bridge of Orchy and finally Inveronon. I took the chance at Inveronon to refill my water bottles as it was beginning to heat up.
On the way back we decided to have a stop at Tyndrum for an ice cream. It was a great incentive to keep going and tasted so good! We then went over to Auchentyre farm and then we were climbing back up to Crainlarich. I kept on thinking that the climb was short but it lasted for ages! My legs were still feeling good though and I was actually running some of the more gradual ascents. In fact I was actually shocked at how my legs felt after 32 miles (30. something on the actual WHW). We paced it really well, Actual movement time on the way was 6 3/4 hours. Everything including breaks and up and down to Crainlarich was probably about 7 3/4 hours. But today wasn't really about time it was more about getting use to spending time on feet. Stephen also enjoyed it and he is looking good for his ultra adventure next month.
I have never done this section before and have to say I loved it! The scenery, the trails and the weather helped too!
The good news is too that I had no stomach problems - I was just eating sandwiches and had one mars bar which took a while to digest but it got there. So I won't be eating mars bars again. Not surprisingly I'm tired today but my legs although tired are not sore. But my back and neck is which is down to my bag bouncing off my back and not having any sort of cushioning for it on it. So I'll need to buy a new backpack with some support and straps. In the end we didn't actually need the running for 15minutes walk for 5 minutes strategy as it was up and down most of the time. But this is something I'll need to practice before Clyde Stride. Will try this on the route in 10/20 mile sections.
This does just cap off an amazing few months. 4/4 PBs, Kintyre way relay and now my first successful attempt at plus 26 miles. Now it is back to training which I'm looking forward to as due to all the races I've not done proper training for the last few months.
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