"Short" days :-)

After a fairly decent night's sleep I decided that I wanted to get back into the event so chose to give Day 4 a go. It was a relatively short day....or so it appeared when you looked at the stats....but there was a twist to come later. I met Iestyn in the food tent and, over the lovely Linda McCartney sausages (at least I could cover them in warm baked beans this time), we decided that it would be fun to start together.

The miles flew by

The early stages flew by as we ran and chatted about anything and everything. As usual for medics, we ended up discussing weird and wonderful cases we'd seen, whilst also swopping work moans. Iestyn works in the hospital on Hobart where I used to work, and it was very interesting to hear that they sometimes use GPs to fill the rota of the emergency department as I'd love to have an excuse to go back to Tassie for longer than just a brief holiday.

And the views weren't bad either!

We were still running along together by the time we crossed the road at the first checkpoint and we joked that only ultrarunners would comment that it was "just a half marathon to go" as we started a long climb uphill. I was climbing quicker and lost Iestyn without realising it, but when I did, it seemed silly to wait, as he is a much more confident (and hence faster) descender than me. We'd passed several people that had started out ahead of us, but by the time I'd reached a level to start contouring round (on a good path), I was all alone with no one in sight ahead of my on the hillside.



Climbing round the waterfall

It was quite a hot sunny day, and I was glad to be able to fill my waterbottle as I crossed the top of a waterfall at the highest point of the day. This was also the point at which the path ended, and as there was no one visible ahead of me, I knew I had to trust in my own navigation. Looking at the map there was a lot of tracklessness which involved some contouring round and some losing of height, but there was a note to "stay above 375m altitude and head east". Tracklessness is an understatement as my initial contouring/losing height route involved a very steep slope, large boulders and very dense heather.



Crossing above the waterfall

I was finding it really hard going as I was also trying to protect my "bad" leg but when said leg is your right leg and you're trying to head round to the right with the hill sloping up to the right of you, it's rather hard. I did a lot of hanging onto heather to lower myself down while also using my arms, especially my right one to push up off rocks and prevent myself from landing too hard when coming down onto them. Just as I was debating disobeying my map and heading right down to the valley floor and picking a route along it, a voice from above cautioned me not to lose any more height.

Beautiful and remote

It was so nice to have company (even though I had spotted a small figure right down in the valley bottom) that we stayed in voice/semivisual contact as we tried to pick routes through the Heather and over the stones while staying at approximately the same elevation. Eventually we found a point where the route on the map showed us that we could descend off the steep incline and cut across a side valley to the one we now had to run up. A photographer appeared which implied that we must be going in the right direction thought the photographer himself tried to refute my supposition. I have no idea how he managed to run and take pictures as he just kept appearing and disappearing.

I could not jump across streams and bogs well as most other runners, as I could neither push off nor land comfortably on my bad leg, so at one point I gave up and just splashed my way all the way the creek......which apparently made for some decent camera footage (though I have yet to see it). Now off the steep incline I was able to move at a decent pace again and soon found myself overtaking another couple of guys as we all headed up various parallel routes to the final col of the day. Those last few miles had taken about as long as the whole of the first half.

A happy Iestyn?

Bliss!!!!

On reaching the col, a track appeared again, and it became a relatively fast few miles winding down the hillside and along to Kinlochewe. The path was a good hard rough track which thankfully lacked jagged boulders to trip tired feet.....and indeed, it was harder to negotiate the sections where steps had been put in. The last section was a flat path through some trees until we hit a tarred road and turned to finish in a village hall. The hall was a welcome sight as it meant that we would have somewhere free of midges to eat our meals, and what's more, Kinlochewe had cafes, pubs and shops and we were there early enough to enjoy them. How much did I enjoy that ice cream and fizzy pop? Bliss!!!

The track wound up the valley

It remained warm overnight and Day5 dawned clear and sunny again. People seemed to be full of beans (or maybe it was actually the food and drink from the village cage, shops and pub) and eager to get going on what appeared to be another (relatively) short day. I was having yet another technical fail....this time, being unable how to work out how to turn my watch on properly....so I promised to catch Iestyn up (the first km or so was on road) when I got it sorted. The first part of the day was a very runnable forest road/track gradually climbing up the valley, so when I caught up to him and another guy, I actually just carried on past as we were moving at different paces. The route involved some very isolated parts of Fisherfield so people were warned to turn back if they felt they "might develop an injury" hence I had the chance to smile and wave to a couple of runners heading back to Kinlochewe.

Off the track again :-)

As I turned off the path on to another trackless section climbing up to a vague col, I realised I had another broad grin on my face. I was loving it (even more so when a large deer galloped down across the valley between me and the runners ahead), and reeling in people who'd started before me gave me confidence that I wasn't so bad in the "rough stuff" as I picked my route down the other side. When I found a bit of a track, Filippo caught up to me. He is from South Africa so we started chatting about all things Comrades, but unfortunately we realised that we'd been so caught up in our conversation that we'd forgotten to stay switched on to the navigation.

It's hard to beat Scotland on a sunny day!!!

We had continued too far along the track and so had to cut down across the valley bottom to a faint path on the other side. We shouted to those ahead of us making their way further up the wrong track, and on turning back, could see a fan of people stretching out across the valley as they all followed our lead and made their way across to the correct line. Filippo was must faster than me on this section jumping easily between and around tussocks and across streams so I soon lost him , but I was more than happy with my own company. Eventually I reached a long forestry road winding down towards an actual tarmac road and the first manned checkpoint of the day.

The short section along the tarmac was rather scary - most cars were very kind and gave me a wide berth, but unfortunately 1 car (driven by 2 lads in their early twenties) decided it would be fun to aim for me and laugh as I jumped into the long grass while they swerved away and laughed!!! Nice!! Some very welcome jellybabies from a marshal, a refill of my waterbottle in a stream and I was trudging up the next hillside in the hot sun. The path was mostly obvious (though there were some "scrambling up through heather" episodes when it petered out or a particular track started heading in the wrong direction but I gained the plateau and just had to make sure I didn't miss where to turn off the (now larger) track and head towards camp.

Looking down towards camp

Clearly there were some delusional runners out that day as earlier on someone had commented to me that "you must be a hill runner) as I passed them on some rough ground (never in my life would I claim to be any kind of hill runner) and then when I turned off and made my way across to start the descent to camp, the race leader decided to follow me with "I like your route choice"!! Still, I took it in the way the compliment was intended (I hope!). He soon nipped away from me as we joined a trail zigzagging down to the valley (I think some of the proper hillrunners just directlined it but the track with its turns was steep enough for me). Finally hitting the bottom and I was running along the road into camp as the first lady to arrive for the second day running (though this did mean that I was given strict instruction as to a time that I was not allowed to start before for the next morning)!

It was a relatively early finish (and still sunny) so Filippo came and found me to wander along to the river for a proper wash (I went in wearing my shorts so I could wash them) including my hair (don't worry - biodegradable shampoo)....a second day of afternoon bliss (it's the little things that please you on such events!!)!! I was so glad that I'd come on the adventure, and though I didn't regret going to the hospital with Eddie for 1 second, I was even more glad that I'd come back and started running again.