Petestack Blog

While my recent recces with Jon of some suggested ‘shortcuts’ on Na Gruagaichean and the Devil’s Ridge have initially led us in both cases to say ‘that’s worth having’, the maths just doesn’t seem to stack up so well on getting home, analysing the data and considering time saved against time taken. (more…)

Last night the staircase, tonight the ridge… (more…)

With more miserable weather forecast (MWIS threatening 60mph gusts, persistent rain and lightning although the BBC suddenly/mysteriously changed their guess to ‘sunny’ this morning), today didn’t look like a good bet to check out the Loch Treig hills for my Ramsay’s Round. So Jon came down from the Fort to discuss some detailed routing options for the whole round and then (with things looking ever so much better than expected and us thinking we’d maybe missed a trick by not going for Loch Treig) we set out about midday to see what we could still learn about the Mamores after more hill-running days on that ridge than either of us can remember. And here’s what we sought and found (list numbered to match map below)… (more…)

So we might have had some sustained sunshine through June but, predictably when you’re a school teacher and don’t get on holiday till July, it’s been raining pretty well ever since and windy enough with it at times to make proper hill running a seriously unpleasant prospect (on which note, kudos to the 60+ runners who turned up for the Half Ben on Sunday when I couldn’t even persuade myself to open the door!). But at least I’ve been getting some things done about the house, spending much of the time between Saturday’s soggy cycle to the Dam and today’s run tidying up the bombsite that’s stayed largely untouched through weeks (nay, months!) of WHW Race training and summer term business… (more…)

So let’s get one thing straight right at the start of this post… we’re talking about an absolutely elite hill-running challenge in Ramsay’s Round, and one that’s maybe beyond me even at the top of my game. It’s certainly something I’d regarded firmly as the preserve of altogether better runners before reading a few years ago of Richard Askwith’s long battle with the Bob Graham in Feet in the Clouds. But that got me thinking that maybe these things are just about possible for the more average of us (NB Richard finished immediately behind me in my first Ben Nevis Race) and, despite Ramsay’s generally being regarded as the harder challenge, concluding that perhaps I could do it if he could! (more…)

Some new experiences in WHWR 2010 (not least being overtaken by others late on when no-one’s previously threatened my sense of closing-stage control in my limited ultra career to date), with so much to ponder that all I’m trying to do by blogging it here is to record a series of ‘snapshots’ from along the way. So here we go, more or less in order but neither starting at the start nor attempting to tell the whole story… (more…)

So I wanted an easy hill run for the weekend before the big race, took Irvine Butterfield’s description of Meall Ghaordaidh as ‘quite the dullest hill in the Southern Highlands’ as a cast-iron recommendation and set out to run it this afternoon. (more…)

Hadn’t expected to be heading down the road this weekend, but Ian Beattie’s midweek proposal for a Friday night run from Milngavie to Balmaha was just what I needed three weeks before the West Highland Way Race (did the same with John Kynaston, Joe Sheridan and others at the same stage in 2007) so I arranged to stay Friday and Saturday nights with my parents in Cardross, pencilled in a hill run for the return journey on Sunday and set off after school on Friday. (more…)

Think yesterday (despite being hot with only intermittent cloud cover) was probably the right choice for a meaty hill run because it’s been absolutely bucketing so far this morning! (more…)