Exactly a month after blitzing the hills west of Glen Shee with Marie Meldrum, Sunday saw me back alone to mop up the ‘rest of Glen Shee’. (more…)
26 August 2014
12 August 2014
Squares, stars, wheels and kelpies
Some tidying up of ‘Munro’ odds and ends last week, with Thursday as ‘deleted Top (square) day’ seeing the missing bumps (which quite frankly probably all deserved to be deleted!) on Meall Garbh and Meall Corranaich efficiently dispatched… (more…)
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5 August 2014
Norway 2014
Quick summary of my week in Norway with Marie and Donnie Meldrum… part recce for Marie’s 2015 Norseman Xtreme Triathlon entry and part, well, just regular holiday! Noted in pseudo-diary form (= even fewer sentences than usual!) with photos ruthlessly (?) pruned from the 500+ I took to give a more-or-less representative taste of the whole, so not even necessarily all the ‘best’ shots… (more…)
25 July 2014
West of Glen Shee
Till 10:00pm Wednesday we were going to mop up the Munros and Tops on either side of Glen Shee. But Marie quite likes cycling, I stumbled over a tempting photo of Glen Ey (not unlike my first one here) in the SMC Munros book, and taking the bikes to get the other ‘batch’ of Glen Shee Ms & Ts suddenly seemed like a good idea. (more…)
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23 July 2014
The Thirty-Nine Steps
Totted up my Munros after Monday’s not-exactly-Cluanie Horseshoe and came to 243, which means (discounting the Tops and Deletions I won’t finish without) I have 39 full Ms to go. So what an excuse for a silly blog title, and here (after a Facebook dry run) we go… (more…)
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22 July 2014
Not exactly ‘Cluanie’!
It’s known as the ‘Cluanie Horseshoe’, but what a daft name for a circuit that’s only really a horseshoe when taken from the north, with many miles of road separating the logical starting point up Glen Affric from Cluanie just a short crow’s flight to the south and no remotely tidy way to link its Munros and Tops from its ‘named’ side! (more…)
19 July 2014
Along the Long Mountain
Too much local trail running and bashing over familiar hills so far this year for the near-endgame Munro/Top/Deletion quest to bear, but (in)sanity’s now restored with yesterday’s trip to collect the three tops of Beinn Fhada (Attow) and ‘singleton’ A’ Ghlas-bheinn with precious little else left within a couple of hours’ drive. And I had a lovely wee camera to test too, having just got the Panasonic GM1 after considering just the new 12–32mm (24–64mm equivalent) lens for my GF2 (hitherto my ‘climbing/running’ camera with the 14mm prime) before deciding to go the whole hog for the new tiny body as well… (more…)
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4 July 2014
Two big Saturdays
Had things turned out differently, this post might have been titled ‘Andy Cole was right’! And perhaps he deserved to be for his typically ‘Andy Cole’ analysis of my 2011 West Highland Way Race report:
Well done again Pete, and a super report. You’re far too young to feel that this race has had its best out of you yet. My prediction is that you’ll think again eventually and we’ll see you back on the start line in around 2014….
But anyone who’s seen the 2014 results will know that my attempt to live up to his long-buried, but quietly haunting, prediction fell somewhat short of the mark with a ‘comeback’ performance that’s left me pondering whether this race had indeed already ‘had its best out of me’. (more…)
1 June 2014
Supporting Nicky Spinks
Yesterday Nicky Spinks broke the ladies’ record for Ramsay’s Round set 25 years ago by Helene Diamantides, recording 19 hours 39 minutes for a time bettered only by Adrian Belton’s outright record also set in 1989. So of course I’m proud to have been involved, running with her (and others) for 19 miles from Fersit over Stob Coire Sgriodain, Chno Dearg and Beinn na Lap to Locheilt Lodge (the ruin at Loch Eilde Mor)! (more…)
25 May 2014
Ultimate Direction SJ Ultra Vest 2.0
Don’t like bladders with drinking tubes for running (stopped using them and went back to bottles years ago), but don’t like handhelds either (like to keep my hands as free as possible). So I’ve been using my Nathan belts or a sack with hip-level holsters for most of my ultras and longer training/fun runs, but rarely escape from a long run without these things rubbing holes in my back. So I was already looking for something with chest-level, front bottle carriers when my interest was recently picqued by the increasingly popular Ultimate Direction Signature Series vests and, with the West Highland Way Race just weeks away, quickly found myself ordering the new version of the middle (Scott Jurek) model. (more…)
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