An e-mail came round our running club a few ago from Konrad looking for a partner for this years Highlander based up at Ullapool. I’d always fancied doing the event so signed up on the dotted line. We’d entered score, as this class stretches the brain as well as the legs and gives for a varied day out. 7hrs Day 1 & 5hrs Day 2 to collect as many check points as possible.
On gathering at the registration in the morning we were informed that we were getting a bus ride round to the Little Loch Broom area and that we could get off at one of two stops. The idea being to give everyone in the category a chance to pick a route they felt would be manageable. You got 3 minutes to look at the map and then decide. We opted for the furthest stop which gave a natural anti clockwise sweep of the course.
The weather on Day1 was pretty kind in the end, dry with a persistent westerly breeze, the only cloud around was on the very tops of the hills & that eventually blew / burnt away by late morning. Roughness underfoot wasn’t as bad as I’d thought given the area and we made pretty good time along the western side of the course. What did make life harder was the saturated top surface which made it a lot harder to get traction and at times keep upright.
I planned in my mind to be at a CP by half way into our time and we were slightly up on this as we headed into a long section skirting to the south of An Teallach arriving at Shenavall bothy with around 2½hrs to go with not many options left. It meant we could back off on the pace we’d been going and conserve some energy for the next day. We got a bit of a surprise then to say the least to find there was a 1.5Km road from the last compulsory CP to the finish. Both of us having omitted to read the last sentence on the description sheet assuming we’d have the usual 200m follow the tapes finish. We still managed to finish with several minutes to spare and claim current leader on our print out. It was then a matter of waiting to see who else came in and what their haul was. As it turned out we stayed in the lead but only by 5pts, which in score class terms is nothing.
The Highlander MM has a slight twist in that you get both food & entertainment at overnight camp. You still have to carry all the normal gear but how nice is it that you’re handed a plate of food prepared by someone else and you can get a beer or pop to wash it down with. Later on for those with energy to burn there is the traditional ceilidh. For once I refrained!
With only a slim lead overnight I knew it had to be another day of full on racing and somewhere along the route going for that “extra” control to make the difference. Looking at the map overnight gave some idea of the route in mind if everything was in play. Weather was similar to Saturday clear with a slight breeze so although navigation was easier it still required care as the CP’s were at more intricate locations. With pretty much a mass start at 7 – 7:30am it didn’t take long to mark up and work out our route. Off we went climbing up the hill side to hit the easterly cluster. Allowing a maximum of 1hr here we set off to the west to do a horseshoe sweep of the course picking up CP’s at a regular rate. The highlight of today’s route was the climb to Beinn Ghobhlach which gave commanding the 360 views of area. Up here I made the decision to go for the outlying CP but it proved to be a good call as the rest of the CP’s on the run in fell nicely without too much height gain / loss on the way back in. With a final charge down the track we came in with just under 10mins in hand.
The organiser’s had then laid on some more fun for us, in the form of a rib ride across the bay to Ullapool from Altnaharrie. Whilst waiting on the prier in the sun we got chatting with the guys in 2nd. Turns out they’d taken a different course to us again, but had also come home late. So we beat them on the day by 10pts and overall to win the class by 15pts. Not a lot after 12hrs racing but enough for it to count.
So a good trip North and a really enjoyable event. The organisers really made a big effort to put something special on for the competitors and though it might seem a long way (to those in the south) I think it’s the potential to build a good following for elite and non – serious competition.
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