It's not all about the run.....

I seemed to have recovered from Day 1 with no ill effects so decided to give Day 2 a go, though consciously decided to take it much easier as it was the first of the longer days (and Day 1 was the first time I'd run more than 6 miles continuously for many months). The weather was not the best.....not helped by the fact that the breakfast provided by the catering team had been hot and plentiful at 6am but when I went at 7am they'd run out of baked beans so I had cold dry veggie sausages and hash browns (I have to say that this situation was resolved by the next day.....and over
the week the team did a fantastic job, going well out of their way to help all of us.....and not one of them raised an eyebrow at the number of pieces of cake and flapjack I worked my way through!).

Where I spent a large
proportion of the week!!

Having loved the run/chat with Eddie on Day 1 I had thought about running with some of my tentmates on Day 2 but they'd all set off ahead of me......though I'm not sure if that was due to my extra faffing, delaying getting out of my sleeping bag into the rain, or just spending longer in the catering tent! Still, at least it meant that I got to exchange a few words of encouragement with them in turn as we passed en route.

The first section had many river crossing of various depth and speed and I found my own St Christopher in a gentleman who currently lives in Australia who said he was using my route choice to help him navigate the rough ground (as he wasn't that used to running on such terrain) and in turn we stabilised each other as we waded through water that was on occasion up to my thighs. 

Up into the hills of Knoydart

I admit to a silly nav error, as I wasn't using my watch with gpx trace but using the map. I'd remembered that we had to go west up a valley along a track after the first checkpoint but had put my map away due to the rain. After said checkpoint I hit a track and headed west up it. After half a mile of seeing no one in front or behind I got out my map.....oops, we were meant to head east along the track as it then looped round and headed west.....so I retraced my steps and got back on course (at least I'd a only added to the route rather than cutting any corners so didn't think I'd be DQ'd).

Back down to the shores
of a remote sealoch

I tended to catch people on the climbs, and so found myself catching up to a friend, David, who adventure races. We were both using our maps in preference to slavishly followed the "trace" and so cut across some little boggy dips rather than winding round on the rocky trails following a train of people. When we looked back everyone had then started to follow us so it was a bit like driving a bus at Comrades.

Up the river valley with Iestyn

Having David and a couple of other guys just ahead of me as we descended back down to sea level gave me the motivation to run faster than I would've descended solo, but then sense prevailed and I let them go, though they came back to me on the beach and flat boggy sections. I caught up to Iestyn at the next checkpoint and we ran along up the valley together chatting away, covering the ground without realising it, but then I lost him on the steep climb up to the next pass.

The final "lochside" 10K

Not being very good with technology, I hadn't set some "ultramode" on my watch and the battery died partway up the climb. I'd overtaken everyone that I'd seen ahead of me as I climbed up, but the weather had closed in and there was very limited visibility There were several little tracks disappearing into the cloud and I wasn't confident of my nav whilst so cold and wet, so I was overjoyed to spot the bright yellow tops of two runners ahead of me as I descended on the other side.

Those final climbs still involved
getting your feet wet (ter)

I decided to go at their pace for a bit to chat and find out about the final section of the day as they'd been and reccied it in training (they warned me that it would be one of the slowest 10ks that I'd ever run). On first glance, it looked like a simple run along the edge of the loch and as I started along the farm road I thought it would be a boring long drag. Then I realised what the warning had meant as the 10k was on single track, often overgrown so you couldn't see exactly where you were putting you feet, and involved 3 climbs of 150m and back down again, with some other small "undulations" in between.

Chips coming up :-)

Going slower might have meant that I hadn't exhausted myself but I had been out longer in the poor weather (the last bit was already quite dark as the trail headed through dense rhododendrons so I didn't envy those out later in the day) and so by the time I got to camp, I decided I needed hot chips ahead of going to my tent to change into drier kit (though as I was first back, I also tried to mop up the water inside the tent, knowing how cold and wet my tentmates would be on arrival). 

Some locals checking out our
portaloos later on

I waited for Eddie thinking she'd be next in, but when I'd been in the catering area for a couple of hours, I realised that the must be something very wrong. Eventually I saw her being helped to our tent by a couple of support crew so I got her a brew and a snack and followed them down. It turned out that something in her back had gone partway through the day, and as she'd been too worried to call for help on her tracker (as we were told that was really for when you couldn't get yourself out) she'd walked the last half of the course in significant pain. She could now hardly put weight on one leg so we got her changed into dry clothes and to the medical tent.

The sky was finally clearing as
we got into the ambulance

I spent the next few hours the with her and them and we decided she needed to be taken out to hospital to get her back assessed/imaged properly. I was the only person that she knew there and as her family live in France there was no way that I was going to let her go to hospital alone and in such pain. My run was of no significance compared to that, so we eventually got an ambulance there (initially they were going to send a helicopter but it had to turn back due to bad weather) just before 11pm. We left after midnight and got to Inverness at 3am (yes, we were that remote and the roads were that bad). 

The A&E drying room

Eddie was taken through to A&E and I was left in reception with our bags to "check her in". There was no one in the waiting room so I got my thermorest and sleeping bag out but was told that I couldn't sleep on the floor, so I spread them out to dry and made myself comfy in a plastic bucket seat (someone did kindly bring me a coffee and a sandwich as I was still in my muddy damp kit from camp). When she went to the ward at 5am I asked if I could go too, but I wasn't allowed into the bay (as it was a 6-bedder) so I took our bags to the day room (at least I sneaked in to use the toilet in her bay as they tried to send me 4 floors down to the public ones). I dozed for about half an hour but then a patient was wheeled in who wanted to watch the TV (on the wall above the chair I was lounging in). No more sleep but at least I got tea and toast!

When it got to a more sociable time of day, I called Eddie's husband Bryn and he got the wheels in motion to sort the children, come over and get her but I made sure I was there for the ward round when the doctors assessed her and wouldn't leave until I knew Bryn had arrived in Scotland and was on his way from the airport in a hire car. Luckily, one of the race crew had been sent to Inverness to buy supplies so once I knew Eddie was sorted (well, as best she could be), I could hitch a lift back to the race camp. By the time I got there, the Day 3 runners were arriving. Gutted as I was to have missed a day, I was glad to be able to report in to the medics and chat to people as they arrived in (Jim had not had a good day but had made it to the finish despite considering dropping and hopefully a rest and food would help him recover.....whereas David was suffering with his ankles and had decided to head home). I was asked if I wanted to run some/all of the next day but I decided to grab some sleep before making a decision (whoever trusts the opinion of someone who's slept 30mins in almost 36 hours). 

Good to hear the locals had been
watching over everyone in my absence!

Some food, a 90 minute kip, some more food and chat and a full night in the tent later.....I decided to give Day 4 a go. I was told that I was now classed as "uncompetitive" but I knew this was due to helping out someone in distress rather than not making the cut offs due to speed/injury so I had nothing to prove and would just enjoy the rest of the week taking it as it came.