Ben Nevis

Weather absolutely boiling.

With lesley ready to produce no.2 child anyday it was touch and go if i was going to be at the starting line at all, however the tike stayed ‘indoors’ long enough for me to carry out my annual suicide on the Ben.

Had three pints of water before the start but still wasn’t enough in the strong sun. Even after the first tarmac mile to Auchintee it was obviously going to be torture by the end. I had a steady start and kept the pace sensible. Feeling very confident that I would be under two hours with ease. Took on water at every chance. No problem other than heat on the climb. A cool breeze helped on the muddy turn up to the Red Burn. Kept pace with Chris Speight (running in his Kendal colours).

Once in the cooler air above Red Burn I kept waiting to see Brian Bonnyman draw level but not so. Unknown ’til the finish he had pulled out because of the extreme heat, apparently saving himself for a stag night later in Forfar. My old sore knee was niggling at me on the way up and part of the way down (only until everything else hurt more).

Still felt good at the top and turned knowing I needed a confident descent to stay sub 2 hours. Well I had a nice steady sure-footed downhill until the bottom of the Green Wall where the heat on the main path melted away any hope of strinding out. Things started to slow down a little on the rough path but blew up spectacularly after the lower zig zags and onto the flatter runable track.

When gravity stopped working for me I actually had to run again. The wheels came off. There was no thought of chasing anybody. It was concentrate on survival to the line! I passed several walking bodies and one lying at the side of the path with a mashed face – ouch! The road back to the park is usually painful but the odd place or two can be pegged back, not today! Head down watching the feet trying to keep running when the brain had long since boiled to stop, was the final twist of the knife.

Those little bumps in the road felt like doing the whole run again. The only thing keeping my legs going are the shouts and claps of the big crowd. A last ‘sprint’ stagger finds enough puff around the final bend to the line and manage to bag a couple of heat stroke victims on the way. Very, very dehydrayted at the finish and spent most of my evening in bed feeling like death. Good points were all the other Westies making it to the finish and Rampant Ronnie having a blinder in 16th place. Mark bagged 5th in Ambleside colours although we all know he’s a DNA westie.

The one sensible one amongst us that ran – definetely Brian.