Arrochar Alps 2013

Allegedly wisdom comes with age but keenness overcame wisdom and I decided to do The Law Breaker on Wednesday as a nice evening run. A good length and shouldn’t do much harm for Arrochar with 2 potential rest days in between. I’ll take it easy. Well I did take it relatively easy but for whatever reason woke with stiff quads the next morning. Now you’ll be thinking he’s getting his excuses in early. Look at BB the elder finishing races with a broken leg. A mere flesh wound. Thanks Brian after that the only valid excuse is amputation, death or worse.

Anyway back to the race. For various reasons this was the first time I’d had a chance to do the race (I’d marshalled on the summit of Ben Vane in 2007). This to me is what hill running is all about. A proper mountain hill race test over 4 Munros with rough ground and the potential for a navigational blunder in bad visibility combined with an unfeasible sounding record of just over 3 hours set in the 80s by the legendary Billy Bland when at his best and only narrowly bettered last year.

I took it easy on the first few miles along Glen Loin and roughly maintained position to the summit of Ben Vorlich. All was going according to plan and at a rough count was lying about 12^th/33 going into the descent. The forecast of low clag was coming in slightly slower than described with mist on the tops to about 800m. The descent is steep but by the dam I’d made up a place and the next 5 runners were bunched within about 2 mins ahead. This was my plan, to try and hold position on the climbs and make time on the descents. Starting up Ben Vane something was wrong, my legs were suddenly failing to respond to requests for upward movement. I’d already eaten something so refuelled again which made no difference. Only another 1500m or so of climbing to go! From there it became a bit of a timed hill walk and by the descent off Ben Narnain my legs were asking for a divorce. At the end all was forgiven and I’ll be back next year with hopefully fresher limbs.

There were at least 2 other Westies (George Douglas and Dave Rogers) but don’t know how they got on. Thanks to everyone for marshalling with offers of jelly babies and encouragement at the bealachs, Drew and team at the finish enduring the midges and to Rob for organising. Next year we need to get a few of the young fast Westies along.