Having been lucky enough to get an entry in this years race Sarah and I had a go at this on Saturday.
This is a really hard race, over some very tough terrain and has one of the largest entries of any hill race in the UK because of the prestige of running up and down the highest mountain in Britain.
The weather was wet, damp and misty for the start of the race on Saturday, temperature at the top was reported at 3 degrees, I would estimate that at least the top ½ of the mountain was in the clouds.
The race starts with a walk around the football ground following a pipe band, then a charge a along the road to the path for the start of the climb.
The route sort of follow the path at points, but equally there are large sections which cut out the path and head straight up the mountain. This results going over steep, slippy, ground at the lower points, then hard loose scree on the upper sections.
The descent is more or less back the way you came, and is very difficult as you are going over the same rough ground, I fell on the scree at the top. Sarah did not fall here, but like most people I saw, we both fell several times on the slippy muddy sections on the way back down.
The race was won by Findley Wild, Locharber in a time of 1:29:21, first lady was Anglea Mudge in 1:51:14
I finished 259th in 2:28:29 and Sarah was 317th with a time of 2:35:50
480 runners completed the course.
On the day I felt tired and sore at the end, but now as I look back on it, the sense of achievement is begining to sink in, as there is no higher place in Britain to run up. We were both really pleased with ourselves for completing the race, Sarah especially had a really good race, thanks to the organisers and everyone who gave us advice and help before the race and on the day Fletcher, Angus and Jean and others. We have neatly filed the numbers and programme away as we might try this 21 times.
