Petestack Blog

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…)

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…)

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…)

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…)

First blog post for months, but why not when I’ve got a good, big run to report?

Knew I wanted something in the 40–50 mile region about now, but not what till I drew up and measured this ‘big Blackwater loop’ on the map last weekend at c.45 miles. At which point, having run everything west of the railway before (most of it many times) but never really considered a pedestrian route between Rannoch and Corrour Stations to link it all up, I was suddenly positively tingling with the anticipation that sent me out to try it yesterday. (more…)

Having previously questioned here ‘how much I want to go on banging my head off a brick wall’ and ‘whether it’s time to call it a day when […] I’m realistically never going to break two hours’, I’m probably encouraged enough by Saturday’s new Ben Race PB of 2:07:27 at age 49 to keep banging my head off that wall for a while longer. (more…)