A wee cough

Yep I was off all week and it was awesome. I had some big adventures planned and to be honest thought it would be all go.  Forgetting that my body might want some rest too, so it was a nice balance between chill days and go days.

I wanted to get out on the hills to start building up a base. So Monday I managed to get up and out the door for half 6! To avoid the rush hour and was up just north of Killin for half 8. There is loads of munros round here, so to start with I did what I think are deemed easy munros - Beinn Ghlas and Ben Lawers. It feels like cheating but the car park for these two is a fair bit above see level so although these 2 are 1100 meters for Ghlas and 1200 odd meters s for Lawers. The total ascent on the route over the 2 munros is 968 meters. So a good couple to start off with. So I was the first one on the mountain and made my way up Beinn Ghlas which is reasonably steep once you get through the nature reserve. Seems clouds today were above 1000 meters so no view from either summit. When I went along the ridge between the 2 which dips down enough to call them both munros there was views from either side but know 360s today. As you can see from the photo of the top of Ben Lawers below.

There is actually another 3 or 4 munros you can knock off after Ben Lawers in a continuous ridge but due to no views and the theory that I wanted to save myself for the rest of the week I left them for another day.

On the descent I went to the bottom of the ridge and took the north path round Beinn Ghlas instead of going up it again. One of the reasons I am doing these munros, is to scout out potential running spots and this route down was definitely in the good bag. Its a nice long gradual one so hopefully one day I will be able to run up and down it, at least to the ridge, then run/walk the rest. On the way down, I met 2 walkers with 10 dogs running free. Oh great! I like dogs I know but those I don't know, I wish I could see there CVs! One of them started running towards me, seriously what do you do?! Not really anywhere to go, so it came up ran back to the owners then I thought it was going for me again as I was past then it lost interest. Then another dog ran up after, so more fun! I got down and it was 11.30am! So 3 hours, 2 munros and a fun day out apart from the dogs, ha.

On Tuesday I was suffering I think more from getting up at 6.30 the previous day so just had a lazy day. Wednesday I went out for a run but turned back after a mile because I was feeling groggy and felt like I had no energy, weird how you get days like that.

Thursday the weather was bad but I thought I'll head to the Pentlands and see what happens. Well on the way through the weather got worse and worse. When I got on the Edinburgh ring road I couldn't actually see the Pentlands and I was right beside them. Maybe I'm just not a hardened hill runner yet but I just thought it wasn't worth it today.  So instead, I headed up to the club in the evening to find the weather had cleared in Glasgow and also one of the women in my club is going to run for Scotland in some Vets championships! WOW! The session tonight was the Merries. Yes my favourite. Tonight I decided to stick with the B group but not to overtake them just try and hang in there. It was all going well until the 5th Merry (hill). Then I got a stitch and really felt I had nothing left. It was a funny night as the C group all were near enough keeping up with the B group. Then 4 of us dropped off and I actually missed out a hill as I was so far behind them. My legs felt ok but the top half just had nothing. So I really slogged it out and that was that.  I still think I should be trying with B group, as the way I see it, if I make it 6 times next time I do the Merries that's an improvement. Also made me realise I need to get the road hills sorted first then start moving on to proper hills. So I'm going to make my easier runs more hilly, but still at an easy pace.

Friday my legs didn't feel as sore as normal after a club session and it was a peach of a day. So I headed up to Tyndrum to climb Beinn A'Chleibh and Ben Lui. Now this was a proper adventure! First of all you have to wade a river (well it was that or walk a kilometer to the bridge!). Which wasn't too deep. Then follow a river through a forest where the path was almost a continuous bog. I knew I had to cross the river at some point and noticed the path was disappearing and it started again on the other side. So I crossed followed it, then it seemed to disappear. Then the bogs got almost knee deep! Which is great training for Mugdock trail race in a couple of weeks. I finally got to the edge of the forest which is fenced off. Its too big to climb and on my notes it said that there are stiles to climb over. It was annoying because I could see the path on the other side I just couldn't get to it! Eventually I found a gap in the fence and went for it. From here the navigating was easy. Climb up to the ridge through more bogs, turn right for A'Chleibh and left for Ben Lui. Being the smaller I went for Beinn Chleibh first. Its only when you get to the top of this one you realise how big Ben Lui is at it is 1100 metres which is 200 meters higher than A'Chleibh. So once I hit the top it was straight down and over to Ben Lui which was tough as it was really steep in places. But at the top you could see for miles and yes 360 views!  Top of Ben Lui

The descent was fun. Even though I asked a few people about where the stiles were, what I though was a path into the forest wasn't. So it was more deep bogs and fun through the forest. I found the river easily and from there it was plain sailing to the car park and no nutter dogs either :-) Another 2 bagged in just under 3 half hours.

Best place to take a picture of a river - in it!

So an absolutely brilliant day!

On Saturday I felt like I was all over the place and was very tired due to lack of sleep as will still buzzing from the day before.   Still had fun down at Park run where I helped manage the funnel.

On Sunday, on recommendation from Phil from my club (who randomly found this blog!) and my parents; I did a run up at the Windfarm just south of Eaglesham. One thing I did forget was my garmin, so I don't know how far I went but I think I was out for about an hour or so. So it was probably about 7 miles. Will need to go back to find out the distances. I have to say this was brilliant. You go from turbine to turbine on forest tracks which I would describe as undulating but I think general public would probably say its hilly. I really enjoyed the views and just being right up beside these massive structures. I say I think I went 7 miles in a loop finishing with a nice hill. But I think you could cover way more miles as it extends for miles and miles.

So an excellent way to finish the week!