So it’s been nearly
3 weeks since the Fling and definitely about time for an update. Gem and I had a great
week in the north-eastern Cairngorms immediately after the race, initially just
learning to walk again, but then actually getting some pretty darn good walking
days in.
Located near
Tomintoul, a relatively quiet and tucked away side of the Cairngorms, we walked
some local hills, explored Strath Avon up into the Cairngorms, plus a big finale of
the ‘Lochaber horseshoe’ once the wind had suitably abated. I hadn't been up four of the five munros on the route, so it was a productive day, and a lot of fun traversing the extensive snow patches which still remained after the late season flurry. Over the course of the week the weather was cool, breezy but generally dry, so ideal for getting out and about to blow of the cobwebs after the Fling. The
area has an abundance and variety of wildlife that I haven't seen matched elsewhere in Scotland – I think we pretty much managed the
full array of what can be found up there – golden eagle, arctic hare, ptarmigan, owls, red squirrel etc etc. Okay, so you’ve got me on the wild cats and
pine martins. Next time...
The running didn’t
re-start until we were back, so it’s been the usual process of coaching the
legs back to life. The change for me at this stage in the season is to crank up the
endurance and elevation ready for the longer races coming up in the Alps –
firstly Lavaredo Ultra Trail (119km, 5,800m +/-) towards the end of June and then UTMB. Heck, the summer is nearly here, not much time to dwell.
The first of the longer days was a look at the ‘Brecon Beacons Traverse’ last Saturday – a route in south Wales
taking in 31 of the 2,000ft+ summits across the Carmarthen Fan, Fforest (yes 2x
Ff’s) Fawr, Brecon Beacons and Black Mountains going west to east. The area is classic welsh rough
stuff and there are lots of fairly direct lines required to link the groups
of hills; the bits most folk don’t do, so are relatively un-trodden & pathless. But also some nice fast high level
sections which on a sunny spring day were a joy to run.
I ran with BAC club
mate Toby Chapman who was trying a long day out for the first time, and I
couldn’t fault the enthusiasm for getting stuck in and joining me :o) His longest run prior to this was 4 hours - we were running for over 8! I felt a bit weary early on, but soon started
to settle in, inevitably for Toby it was the opposite, but we nailed 40miles
(first 60%) of the route which was the plan from the outset. We were both about done by the end, although still fool-hardy enough to want to round up to 40 when we arrived back at the car with 39.8 miles on the clock. That's a bit of the BAC OCD for you.
So I just need to check
out The Black Mountains bit now, which will be a good day out in itself, then I might be in a position to have a go at
the whole thing. I’ve got some crew recruiting to do :o)
Might prove a nice
little summer project, or maybe another year, we shall see.
Here's a selection of photo's from the Brecon Beacons last Saturday:
1 comment:
Great blog you have heere
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