On Saturday the 7th of June I completed a new hill running challenge that I had devised for myself. The plan came about from wanting to do a route that would be a good challenge in itself but also a stepping stone towards a possible future Ramsay round.
After much deliberation I decided on a final plan of running Munros which spelt out “Scotland”. The hills chosen were Schiehallion, Carn Gorm, Ben Oss, Meall nan Tarmachan, Ben Lawers, An Stuc, Ben Nevis and Beinn Dorain. The all important stats are 84.2km with 6520m of ascent. The hills were to be run in the order they fall from East to West rather than the order that spells out Scotland to keep the driving to a minimum.
I hoped an early shift at work on the Friday would allow me to sleep in the afternoon and start the challenge at 1am, however after finishing work and driving to my parents house (my dad had kindly offered to drive me between the hills and provide hill running essentials such as cups of tea and bacon rolls) I couldn’t sleep. The plan was quickly changed to leave mid evening and start just as it got dark. This gave me 2 hills to do in the dark but meant I would hopefully finish at a more sociable time on the Saturday.
Schiehallion and Carn Gorm passed fairly easily with the exception of a major fright for both myself and a couple who were bivvying in the clag halfway up Schiehallion! On Ben Lawers and An Stuc I had the most amazing sunrise which raised the spirits for a quick dash up Meall nan Tarmachan (will hopefully be a slightly quicker dash for the championship race later in the year!). I started to feel the effects of being awake for over 24hrs on the climb up Ben Oss. Even on fresh legs it is a horrible drag over bog after bog and I seemed to be putting in huge amounts of effort for very little forward motion. With a bit of impromptu racing of hillwalkers on Beinn Dorain I was up and down fairly quickly and on the way to Fort William. The weather had been remarkably kind all day, unfortunately the promised stormy weather hit within 10 minutes of starting the climb up the Ben. I initially took to the race route to avoid the masses of 3 peak challengers on the main tourist track however with shot legs and gale force winds I had to concede that I would probably be quicker just keeping to the track. I normally hate the descent from Ben Nevis but I was so cold by the time I reached the summit that I had no choice but to hammer the descent and try and gain some core temperature. The swift descent down Ben Nevis led me to finishing with a running time of 14:59:30. I had hoped to be under 16hrs so was pleased with my efforts.
All in all a fantastic long but tough day out in some of my favourite Scottish hills (with the exception of Ben Oss which I would happily never run again!). A run on Sunday and Monday in the Ochils to get the equivalent ascent of a Ramsay round (albeit over 3 days) shows that it’s still going to be quite some challenge and involve a lot of work to achieve but I feel it’s now certainly a possibility!
John Hammond