There were lots of Carnethys in the Glencoe to Ben Nevis area over the weekend racing in the Salomon Skyline series of 4 races which include:
Mamores VK™ on Thursday
– 5km / 1,000m
Ben Nevis Ultra™on Friday
Planned as – 52km / 4,000m (bad weather reduce this to 49km / 2060m ascent)
Ring of Steall Skyrace™ on Saturday
– 28km / 2,750m
Glen Coe Skyline® on Sunday
Planned as – 52km / 4,750m (bad weather reduced this to 33km / 3000m ascent retaining the ascent of Curved Ridge)
There is a great website with all the info, maps, pictures and videos and results here: http://www.skylinescotland.com/ or look on Facebook/Strava. Look out for a cracking drone sequence of Jasmin chasing Konrad across the hills and in another you might see me giving Jilian Kornet a run for her money. I am in the white red top.
What can you say about this event: Very European, with bagpipes and mud. I suspect Kinlochleven will take a while to recover and certainly the trails used will need some time. My quads should recover by Weds I hope.
Folk came from all over the World since it was the final of the Skyrunner World Series. If you knew who-was-who in the elite field, well the great and the good (freaks, as I call them), were there. Your low key Scottish hill race – it was not. More lycra, hydration vests, headbands and walking poles than you could shake a Carnethy buff at.
As it turned out, both the Ultra Route competitors and the Glencoe Skyline racers were a bit short changed by the ‘bad’ weather with both routes being shortened, making the Ring of Steall and the Vertical KM sticking to the planned traces on the map. You don’t need a map mind you, since there where thousands of little red flags and arrows to show the way. That didn’t stop some people taking wee detours though.
I did the RoS which is a great route comprising airy ridges, bog, technical running on slippery rock and two 1000m ascents and descents with a river crossing and few other smaller climbs across the Mamores range. Quite tough, misty and drizzly on the tops, and requiring a good food plan to avoid bonking later in the race. Some folk complained about the quagmires, I thought it was fine… just run around it.
The winning times in all the races are bonkers to me, but then I don’t run 100m in <10s or a marathon in less than 2:03!
Rémi Bonnet ascended a KM in 39:23
Jonathan Albon led for most of the ULTRA race and finished in 3:48:02.
My great rival Kilian Jornet just pipped me this time on the RoS in a ridiculous time of 03:04:34.
Boyed by his easy day on Saturday he went to trot around the Skyline route (his recovery run) in an equally ridiculously impressive 03:37:17.
As I say…freak, or should I really say – inspiring freak.
I will have missed Carnethy racers whose names I forget, but here are those I spotted in the results. If I missed you, email webteam@carnethy.com and add your time and a wee report:
Vertical KM (343 finished, 4 didn’t)
Carnethy was represented at the Vertical Kilometer race, the opening race of the long weekend, by Murdo McEwan and Mark Thomasson in dire weather conditions. Their respective times of 73:11 and 78:40 seem somewhat pedestrian when compared to the 23 year old Swiss winner, Remi Bonnet’s, record breaking 39:23 (over 2 minutes ahead of 2nd placed Norwegian Thorbjorn Ludvigsen). But, hopefully, within their age bands their times are rather more respectable!
Murdo McEwan – full report in next Journal
ULTRA (347 finishers, 22 didn’t) | |||
John Hammond | 05:08:40 | 72nd | |
Phil Humphries | 05:47:45 | 128th | |
Fergus Johnston | 06:10:19 | 170th | |
RoS (664 finishers, 48 didn’t) | |||
Andy Lamont | 04:35:39 | 115th | |
Will Normand | 05:01:50 | 157th | |
Alex Coakley | 05:05:53 | 171st | |
Peter MacDonald | 05:29:40 | 228th | |
Mark Hartree | 05:50:53 | 279th | |
Nick Goldfinch | 06:41:30 | 424th | |
Skyline (198 finish, 5 didn’t) | |||
Konrad Rawlik | 04:17:32 | 22nd | |
Jasmin Paris | 04:17:55 | 25th | |
Jonny Muir | 04:49:25 | 52nd | |
Pete Curtis | 05:39:24 | 113th | |
Lucas Lefevre | 05:59:43 | 138th |
Have a go next year. There is a race for you and you have time to save up for it.
Mark Hartree