Way More Fun

Introduction

Murdo McEwan has a lot to answer for. I knew he’d completed the West Highland Way (WHW) race many times, but I’d never really paid it much attention. Murdo has the health, fitness and enthusiasm of a man in his early twenties, and it’s really only by the date stamped in his passport that anyone would know his age as otherwise. He radiates joy and positive energy, and comes up with wonderful expressions like “they’ve added five miles to the 95 mile Tour du Mont Blanc race course this year”, i.e. seriously bad news, but for Murdo “so there’s even more of it to enjoy!”
Anyway, he arrived one evening asking about the Ramsay Round, and by the end of the night he’d infected me with his youthful enthusiasm for the WHW race, and I found myself entering shortly thereafter.
It’s hard to read blow-by-blow descriptions of any race, and instead of boring you all with what happened at each individual mile marker, I thought I’d look at this from a slightly different angle and set about illustrating how the WHW is way more fun that you’d imagine, and secondly in a roundabout way demonstrating that the race is within the grasp of many more people than would otherwise think possible.
The premise of the WHW race is simple: it starts at 1am on the Saturday closest to the summer solstice from Milngavie on the edge of Glasgow, and you have 35 hours to walk, shuffle and run to Fort William some 95 miles and 14,760’ further north.

Preparation

Well if nothing else, my preparations for the race demonstrate that a little bit of training can go a long way. 2007 was a busy year, juggling a big new project at work, with organising the Carnethy 5, looking after three small kids and evening studies with the Open University.
In between this I squeezed in enough training for a possible attempt on the Paddy Buckley (PB) Round at the start of May. This is the Welsh equivalent of the Bob Graham and Ramsay rounds, based in the hills of Snowdonia in North Wales, and was to be my final preparation for the WHW Race on June 22nd 2007.
For mere mortals the PB is sufficiently challenging that you need good or at least half-decent weather to succeed, and after waiting six consecutive week-ends the rain clouds never parted long enough to give it a proper go. North Wales is a beautiful area, but it evidently lives up to its wet reputation.
The upshot of this was for eight weeks I took things easy, running no more than 15 miles per week, conserving my energy for an attempt on the PB each week-end. Suffice to say that by the start of the WHW race the PB remained untouched and I was feeling distinctly underwhelmed with my training (or lack thereof).
Murdo’s sage advice that “it’s better to be at the start 10% under-trained than get there injured from too much training” gave me some hope, and at least I knew what I was doing in terms of nutrition and the mental aspects of these long runs, but nonetheless it still felt like I was a lot more than just 10% under-trained.

On The Way



One of the great delights of the WHW is just how utterly perfect it really is. For a long time I’d harboured an ill-formed misconception of the route being somehow not worthy of attention amongst all the other splendours of Scotland. In reality it is a perfect showcase for all the best bits of Scotland, from the gorgeous ancient woodlands along the eastern edge of Loch Lomond, through to the magisterial splendour of Glencoe and beyond where you not only pass the King’s House, but you feel like you’re in his very Kingdom (so to speak!).
Early in March I crept out midweek for a day of cool, clear weather to mountain bike with Chris Davies along the northern half of the WHW from Crianlarich to Fort William. I lost count of the number of times our jaws hit the ground in appreciation of both the scenery and the quality of the riding. For anyone that enjoys Glentress, this stretch of the WHW is like 48 miles of almost continuous red/black trails, and I’ll certainly be going back to ride this again in the future. We met one other walker the entire day.
This MTB trip was a real help as this served as my only reconnaissance of the WHW for the run in June, and it was also a bit of a wakeup call as riding half of the WHW on a bike still most definitely felt like a full day out. Chris summed it up perfectly for both of us when he said “why travel all the way to New Zealand when you’ve got scenery this good on your own doorstep?”



The People

One of the best aspects of any race is the people, and for something as big as the WHW this effect seems to be magnified. The race organiser Dario Melaragni treats each competitor as if they are an individual member of his own family, and random spectators provide such uplifting encouragement that it still makes me smile even today. “You look GREAT, there’s not far to go now” one enthusiastic woman kept shouting each time she saw me. Sadly neither was in fact true, but it provided a valuable psychological boost nonetheless.
You certainly meet some real characters on route, and on a race of this distance you even get to know some of them pretty well too. I started out in the enjoyable company of Russell Stout, and then after bumping into the irrepressible Murdo a number of times ended up with Carl Pryce over Conic Hill. You soon get the feeling that the race is not exactly full of slouches (and wonder what on earth you’re doing amongst them).
And surely the best people of all are the supporters that turn up to help you through. My support arrangements were somewhat last minute (partly due to weather watching on the Paddy Buckley), but I knew that the first 12 hours with Mick James was tantamount to cheating as his help was so completely flawless. He’s done more than enough long runs to understand exactly what you want, when and to pre-empt every request too!
He handed over my box of supplies to my pal Will H. White (top tip, chose a supporter for the race who has the initials WHW), and he did an amazing job too with loads of encouragement and food and drink. This was Will’s introduction to the Highlands (he’s a pal from down south) and he’s new to the scene of supporting runners on long races. Mick’s parting advice to him was “don’t worry when Olly starts throwing up, he knows what he’s doing”... hmmm
And then at the King’s House was one of the best sights of all, Carnethy’s very own Shane Bouchier, who’d generously agreed to be my hill support for the final legs. It should be said that I was not perhaps the finest sight to Will or Shane at this point, and I was most definitely on my final legs (more of this later).
Shane is wonderful company, and despite the fact that I could scarcely shuffle let alone run, he remained patient and entertaining with all sorts of stories about life in Edinburgh and back in Ireland. Some hot soup at Altnafeadh (near Jimmy Saville’s house at the head of Glencoe, just before you ascend the Devil’s Staircase) worked wonders, and snapped me out of the previous ~25 miles of purgatory, and had me bounding up and over the hill towards Kinlochleven feeling really fresh again.
It was at this point that I called Jane, and she detected the tiredness in my voice straight away. “Why are you finding it so hard?” was her innocent question, to which it took me about 5 minutes of silence before my brain slowly computed the simple reply “err... that’s probably because it’s... err... a bloody long way!”



The Race

Well it all depends on your perspective, and for me this was more of a challenge with myself and the clock than any sort of ‘race’ against anyone else. My goals were, in descending priority: to get to the start, to get there uninjured (this was pretty much guaranteed based on my training), to reach half way, to make it to the end, and least important of all to beat 24 hours. I also figured it’d be a good chance to get to know myself and my limits a little better too, which is always fun.
The race itself probably does not make very interesting reading unless you were there in my shoes (and if you are there in my shoes then remember to choose something other than fell shoes, as they seriously start to hurt after 50 miles on hard trails), so instead I’ll focus on a particularly vivid period crossing Rannoch Moor in the company of a modest and lovely chap from Durham Fell Runners by the name of Tim Makin.
We were both feeling pretty rough, my vision having retreated to a tunnel (it feels like your retinas have been moved to the back of your skull, peering out of your eye sockets, so all periphery vision is removed), and to my absolute delight I started to see things. Not just any old things, but serious full-blown hallucinations... all of a sudden I was enveloped in yellow flashing LEDS (after a few hard blinks these turned out to be patch of buttercups), then there was the giant orange traffic cone (a branch), then a new double buggy/pram a few feet back from the trail (a bolder)... the list went on. It lasted perhaps 30 minutes, and we were alone on this pristine trail in gorgeous early evening sunlight.
Our conversation must have sounded pretty funny to anyone listening in since we were managing entire sentences at an average of one word per minute. “Er... yes... I’m... seeing... some... pretty... weird... stuff... too” was his reply after tentatively mentioning my hallucinations to him (all the while worried that he’d sprint off thinking FREAK). By the time I reached King’s House I was very pleased to see Will and Shane, and had my first real sit down of the race, feeling overwhelmed that I’d given my all to reach this point, and there was still a full marathon distance to run over several large hills between my current position and the end.
But onwards I plodded, reasoning that it was only truly over when I was physically no longer able to complete the simple task of putting one foot in front of the other. It took all my remaining mental strength to focus 100% on the here and now, and rigidly block out any thoughts of the remaining miles, hills or hours.
The journey to Kinlochleven was spectacular, I could run or cycle this section a hundred times and still not get bored, with the Mamores spread out in their wild splendour like lonely sentries guarding the horizon, and not a human impact on the landscape anywhere save for the trail dancing ahead. And beyond this things continued OK, although it started to grind again leading up to the final checkpoint at Lundavra and beyond. By this stage it was drizzling and dark, and I was being overtaken by the entire race, but it didn’t matter because I knew I was going to finish, and I knew I was going to make it under 24 hours. My final time turned out to be something like 23.20 which I was delighted with.
My sincerest thanks to Mick, Will and Shane for helping me through, you know I would not have made it without you. The WHW is certainly way more fun than I could ever have imagined, and however you choose to do it, it’s out there waiting for you with some of the very best bits of Scotland to enjoy.



Postscript

I find these long runs take a few days to sink in, it’s almost like your body goes into shock immediately afterwards and the memories only start to be released when your mind has finished assimilating all that’s happened.
The day after the race I was on a 6am work flight down to London, straight back into the 200mph project I’d left the Friday before. My colleagues looked a little startled when I came to the meeting without my shoes, and then spent the entire day with my swollen feet up on chair. Somehow it didn’t seem quite so urgent or important anymore.
And then in late October I grabbed another midweek day with Chris Davies to cycle the southern half, thereby completing my second journey along the WHW in 2007. The southern stretch of the WHW involves a lot of carrying along the top half of Loch Lomond, and even this bit aside it remains a wonderful trip. If anything it felt more technical than the northern half, and again half of the WHW on a bike still felt like a full day out.
I’m left with memories of the WHW that will last a lifetime, like a golden era of childhood, of fun with friends in the outdoors, of stretching my boundaries, and of changing the way I see the world and what can be done in it. And if you’re keen to reduce your long-haul flights, remember we’ve got our very own New Zealand here in our back yard, and it’s probably way more fun than you’d ever imagine.