Sometimes these things are just so unexpected but, with Fly still out of the water needing work and Twig Olsen lined up to help get her sorted for 2011 (when I’m not going to be training obsessively for running ultras!), I was taken aback to get a phone call last night from a short-crewed Peter Watt inviting me to join Vaila for Glencoe Boat Club’s first race of the season tonight. So I thought aloud for about ten seconds (‘can’t afford to miss a night’s training… need to get out for a run straight after school… yes I’d like to come!’) before agreeing, then kicked myself out of the house for a quick blast up to the Penstock and back (4.6 miles/c.1,200 ft ascent) almost as soon as I got home this afternoon.
But this isn’t a post about running (!), and tonight’s sail was great. Peter had asked me to drive, leaving himself free to trim/manage sails with Jill Mills and young Ruaridh, and what sheer joy it was to be back at the helm of a thoroughbred racing yacht (this one’s a lovely, sleek, Scandinavian-designed BB10) again! With a steady (but never excessively fresh) breeze by Glencoe standards to make things easy for us and a boat that quite simply tracks beautifully, it’s also a relief to able to report that Vaila’s high standards were upheld and, despite a couple of fankles with gear (not to mention nearly joining two other competitors on the reef east of Eilean Choinneich after the buoy marking it was discovered to have drifted), we finished far enough ahead of everyone to save our time on them all and win the race. After which I quickly found myself agreeing to sail Wednesday evenings through May until Peter’s regular crew get home from university… which should sit quite tidily with the running when I can work things like I did tonight with a lighter training load already planned for the weeks either side of the Cateran Trail Race. :-)