Arran Day 2

Day 2 route

The mountains of Day 2

Day 2 was set to be longer and tougher and so started an hour earlier, but it wasn't exactly that cosy and snug tucked up in my sleeping bag in my car anyway. It seemed a lot colder then the previous day so I opted for capris instead of shorts and put on an extra thermal longsleeve layer (it turns out that the race organisers has posted "on their social media pages" about the deterioration in the weather and that they would be doing more kit checks during the event.....but how anyone was to know that is beyond me!) before forcefeeding myself way more breakfast than I felt capable of consuming let alone enjoying (but I knew it would take a long time to get between Pit Stops).

Another chilly start

Along the beach...

After another compulsory briefing that we couldn't actually hear, we were off, but this time going in the opposite direction through the start gantry. We ran across grass, along some little trails and then popped out onto a sandy beach. I started slightly further forward than on the Saturday but there were still many that hared off straight away. I worked my way past many of them (including several ladies) and found myself running alone by the time I got onto the sand (well...if you can really call what I was doing "running" as the soft sand seemed to sap any leg strength I hadn't lost the day before). Thankfully the beach section wasn't too long and I soon found myself on a lovely runnable trail heading up Glen Rosa.

The Glen Rosa trail

I had a few brief chats to a couple of guys I'd met the previous day, but a longer conversation nearly became my downfall. I'd first spoken to Nathan on the ferry over to the island, and then again on Day 1 before he disappeared off up the rocky beach. As we chatted about the previous day, we ran over a little footbridge and blithely followed the guys in front down the trail to the left, picking up some speed as it started to descend. It did seem rather odd to be heading back down towards Brodick rather than further north into the hills, but I didn't really think much about it....until people started shouting at us all. They were heading up the other side of the valley towards the bridge (where we'd been earlier). It turns out that we'd all missed a small routemarker that indicated we had to turn right after the bridge and leave the circular Glen Rosa hiking trail. All of us had run a good half mile in the wrong direction - what idiots!! - so everyone about turned and started back up the valley. Several of the men powered back up to rejoin the race route, but I tried not to worry about it, as we still had an awfully long way to go and I didn't want to exhaust myself correcting that error. Unfortunately, it meant that by the time I was back on course, I was way back down the field again, and as the path was very narrow, it was nigh on impossible to pass people a lot of the time, so I was rather at the mercy of other people's pace.

Chasing back up the trail again

Easy does it, and by the time I reached the head of the valley and was climbing up to the South Ridge of Cir Mhor, I'd passed umpteen men and 6 ladies (again!). I now had no idea how many more were further ahead of me, but I decided to just take the rest of the day as it came. The climbing had definitely warmed me up so I'd long removed and packed away my waterproof jacket, buff and gloves. People were stopping on the ridge to add more layers as the wind was bitingly cold, but I preferred to keep moving - as I was worried that everything would blow away if I started unpacking my kit. Someone commented on how "strong" I was not to have put my waterproof back on, but my plan was to do so once I was over that lump and in some shelter. The problem was that once I was out of the wind, it was not only warmer but easier to run and so I still didn't put anything else on.
 

Up round the corries

Beautiful views...if a little chilly!

I did get rather cold running round the edge of the corrie towards Caisteal Abhail and so I fished out my gloves and buff as I climbed but I was then too cold to be bothered with my waterproof. The right side of my face was freezing as the wind blasted it (I heard later that the windchill was -7 up there) but I pushed on over the highest point knowing it would be better on the other side (though I made a mental note to have my waterproof ready for when we had to summit Goatfell on the return journey). A short run down a spur lulled you into a false sense of security as the route markers then suddenly disappeared off onto a steep, trackless, rocky, heathery slope. This was more the terrain that I'd expected for this part of Arran and somehow I managed to descend without anyone passing me (and I even caught a man up!!!) until I hit the rocky trail along the valley at the bottom.
 

The route looking towards the north of Arran

Running down into Lochranza

The first Pit Stop of the day was just as you came into Lochranza - initially I thought it was actually in the distillery, but actually it was a shelter set up in the carpark. Many of the guys seemed to be stopping here for a proper feed and a rest, but I just grabbed a flapjack bar, some water and carried on. A man I'd run down into Lochranza with had done the event in 2018 and told me that this next section had seemed interminable to him, so I pushed on as there was some nice tarmac to trot down (Ok, so the end of the road came all too soon) and then a decent coastal trail round the "Cock of Arran" - the most northerly point of the island. I passed a lone marshal who uttered those lovely words "it's a headwind all the way!" and advised me to keep hugging the coast. The former made my heartsink as the wind would gust so strongly that it sometimes stopped me dead in my tracks and I really wasn't so keen to run 8 miles into it, and the latter was rather obvious as I was pinned between rocks and sea to my left, and steep slopes to my right.

Nathan had stayed longer at PS1 than me and so soon passed me, but apart from him, the two men I passed and a couple of walkers, I saw no one else along the whole stretch. Most of it was runnable (wind notwithstanding) but there were also some rocky scrambles up and down and round the coast (it reminded me slightly of the Lofoten race I'd done in Norway). Nathan clearly wasn't loving this bit either as I caught him back up again and he later said that having me in front of him just kept him going. Finally, the path turned onto a gravel road and I knew it couldn't be too far to Pit Stop 2.

Heading up Glen Sannox

PS2 had some Red Bull reps (the first ones I'd seen all weekend despite them sponsoring the event) hanging around and so I gratefully downed a can, ate some jaffa cakes, and unpacked my bag for the compulsory kit check (we had to show full body cover, hat and gloves before being allowed back up into the mountains towards GoatFell). I waited for Nathan and we headed off together (saying that suffering was easier when you were doing it with someone else), with the exit from the PS being marked by a chilly wade across the river (luckily no mishaps so we just got wet feet/legs). From there we headed inland up Glen Sannox towards the GoatFell range. Nathan was much more sure of his footing and so moved away from me, catching up to the guy ahead of him, but they were only just ahead of me as we climbed up out of the valley to the back of Cir Mhor again.

Stuart's pic :-)

"Some" scrambling was necessary

We had a "mountain support crew" to help with any dramas before we reached the ridge, but rather than helping me up the chimney, Stuart just took photos as we exchanged banter about who was buying the beers later. To be fair, even with my constantly worsening fear of heights/dropoff/technical terrain, it wasn't bad. On reaching the top, I got my waterproof out ready to use a windbreak, but just tied it round my waist for the time being as I knew I had more climbing to come. There was an option to take the "low route" from here and descend down to Brodick via Glen Rosa without having to go along the Goatfell Ridge, but as I'd gotten that far, it was all or nothing for me! Let's just say that ridge took a while as there were a lot of false summits, scrambles, rocks etc. A few points had marshals/mountain crew with ropes to help us, but the three of us managed to make good headway and finally reached the 874m trig point. I knew that there was no way I could even try to keep with the lads as we descended, but I did want to "run" down as much as I could.

Wearing almost all my compulsory kit

A dramatic ridge "run"

Yippee - the Goat Fell trig

Unsurprisingly (there were several miles of descent on a rocky path) I was passed, but only by one man, which gave me the confidence to keep going. I was really surprised to find myself passing a couple of runners as I came out of the woods at the bottom of Glen Rosa, but it turns out that they had dropped out of the event and were just returning to the finish. A final sting in the tail was that we did not just run into the finish in Brodick but were sent back the way we'd started.....along the energy-sapping sandy beach (there was definitely even less strength in my legs now and I was sorely tempted to sit down on the sand and strop!!), the little paths and the grass of the start area, but then we doubled back again and crossed the road into the finish field, where my age was again revealed to anyone who'd missed it the previous day!

All in all, over the 2 days I'd covered 63miles, climbed (and descended) 11300feet caught up with old friends, made new ones, but mainly had a great time exploring an island I really didn't know very well. I'd finished 6th overall in a faster time than the fastest lady on each day the previous year, but although I can kind of understand there being no prizes, it did seem weird that finishers got the same medals as those that DNF'd. It was a great weekend experience but not one I'd really recommend unless you've got money to burn. The entry fee alone is one of the highest of any event I've done - and then you still have to get there (petrol and ferry) and pay for accommodation, food and drink. At registration we did get a t-shirt and a plastic bottle of water, but at the finish there was nothing except taps to refill this plastic bottle, and a teacup's worth of chilli to eat. It probably would have been worth my while going back to the aid stations as they were clearly the way to get the most out of the event!