Three years ago WAC had an influx of new
members with Aberdeen connections, Gillean, and Andrew and Jane Douglas.
After one year as WACers, Andrew and Jane returned to Aberdeen, we have
kept in touch ever since. They joined Deeside Runners, and soon I learnt
of an extraordinary race that their new club organised, ‘The Lairig Ghru’.
This is a 28 mile fell race that starts at Braemar (near Balmoral), over
the Cairngorm mountains before finishing at Aviemore, a Scottish tourist
centre. In recent years I have limped from one injury to the next, lucky
to get 3 months on, 3 months off, I needed a goal and Lairig Ghru was
it. The original plan – scuppered by injury – was to go up in 2006. By
September I was running again, but I suffered a calf injury in January,
in mid-March Lairig Ghru 2007 was looking like a lost cause. The first
week in April I finally got going again, I had a place in the London
Marathon for three weeks later. If I had the remotest chance of running
Lairig Ghru I needed to run the marathon, even though I hadn’t done more
than 15 miles in a single run since October. London was Wendy’s first
marathon and that also acted as an incentive. I got through London OK,
and spoke to Andrew and Gillean and they were still up for the ‘Scottish
race’, and so we booked our flights. Jane had a very good excuse for not
racing, she was 6 months pregnant! It is impossible to recreate the
conditions of Lairig Ghru in Southern England, but the Neolithic
Marathon and the 33mile Marlborough Downs Challenge a fortnight later
would have to suffice. The Lairig Ghru race stipulates that competitors
should carry ‘a whistle, full waterproof body cover,
a map and compass’ and ‘competitors should typically be capable of a
sub-4 hour road marathon’. The sub-4 hour marathon is something I
haven’t managed for far too long, so I just put that out of my mind. I
bought a rucksack and camelback, Tim Box lent me some of the equipment
on the list. I needed to run the Neolithic and Marlborough Downs races
with full kit to get used to it. Both races passed without incident (at
Marlborough I loaded the rucksack with extra weight), it appeared that
stamina/ endurance was not going to be an issue, but my times were
pretty poor. I had two more runs planned prior to Scotland, a half
marathon near Oxford and the Puddletown Plod. I took a tumble in the
half-marathon and gave my dodgy toe a severe jolt in the first mile. I
completed the race, but the toe was sore enough for me to go down to A&E
the next day for a precautionary x-ray. Thankfully, there was no break.
This put me out of the Puddletown Plod but I was running again in time
for the Wimborne 10 time trial were I could only manage 1:26. All I had
to do now was stay out of trouble until race day. My last run was at
Rona’s barbecue on the Thursday before the race. I managed the run fine,
but then went over on my ankle on Rona’s garden path! Friday morning I
had physio and acupuncture on the ankle.
On Saturday I drove to
Exeter and Gillean and I were to fly from there. Andrew would meet us at
Aberdeen. I was up early so decided to look at the Met Office website,
there was a severe weather warning for the Grampian Region! Northerly
winds (the race would be into the wind all the way) with heavy rain
falling as snow over 800m (our highest point was 850m). It was great to
see Andrew and Jane and also Andrew Law, a friend of their’s, who would
also be staying overnight and doing the race with us. The rain was
incessant. Again we looked at the websites, there was a slight
improvement, mention of snow had gone and the wind was becoming more
easterly.
Race day arrives, it is
still raining but not quite so hard, we drive off to Braemar. The
weather isn’t great, but not nearly so bad as the Met Office had
predicted. There were only 70-odd runners in the race. We get all our
kit out of the back of the car and there is a great debate about what we
should take and what we should leave behind. We look at the other
competitors, a few have a big rucksacks, others are running in vests and
shorts with a bumbag! We are somewhere in the middle, but we all take
survival blankets. If you get stuck in the mountains or slow down too
much, you are going to get very cold, very quickly. The whole event is
very low key, the man in charge advises us that a stream we have to
cross is in spate so using the stepping stones is not a good idea and
there is a bridge which will add around 1km to the route. There are
cut-off points at 8 miles (1h30m) and 18 mile (3h30m) and also at the
finish line at (6:00). These times don’t seem over generous, bearing in
mind the terrain. The start line is at 330m asl, the first cut-off is
8miles at Derry Lodge (420m), where the mountain rescue station is.
We are off. The first
couple of miles are on tarmac road. A mile gone and Andrew said to me,
‘We are going too fast’. We are on a gentle climb, doing between 8-9min
miles which he feels will be unsustainable. He might be right, but a
glance over our shoulder shows only about half a dozen runners behind
us, the other 60-odd are pulling away. We then run on a track to Derry
Lodge. Eight miles done, we are there in 1:20, ten minutes inside
cut-off. I feel I am running as well as I have anytime recently. Just
beyond Derry Lodge we see an eagle as it soars high above us. At 10
miles we get to the stream we had been warned about, all four of us are
still together. The two Andrews go for it and we saw them haul
themselves up the bank safely on the other side. Gillean and I decide
that caution is the better part of valour. If we can stay on the
stepping stones the water looks as if it will come up to our knees, one
slip and you will be in it up to your neck and tumbling into the River
Dee and downstream at speed. The two Andrews disappear, and Gillean and
I head off to the bridge on what is the most difficult path we have seen
so far. I notice that those behind also opt for the bridge. We pick our
way through the rocks and finally get to the bridge, on the other side
is a peat bog which is almost as difficult to negotiate. We have lost
quite a bit of time.
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Gillean at Lairig Ghru |
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Lairig Ghru on a Clear Day |
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A little further on and
we swing into the Lairig Ghru, a spectacular high-sided valley. One
luxury item Gillean and I have allowed ourselves in our kit is a camera
each and we both take photos, there is some low cloud around and it is
still pretty damp. We are now on a narrow footpath which doubles as a
shallow stream. It starts to get tricky underfoot with lots of small
rocks to be negotiated. The stones become much trickier as we approach
the Pools of Dee – Gillean begins to edge away. Immediately after the
Pools of Dee we are faced with the boulder fields. Words can’t describe
what this was like to get through. Gillean does her ‘Braveheart’ bit
here, showing the agility of a mountain goat, she skips fearlessly away
into the distance, I didn’t see her again until we got to the finish
line. I got the first boulder field completely wrong and lost the path
(and the plot) completely, at times I was literally clambering and
crawling across wet slippery rocks. A couple of times I came to a
complete stop, wondering which way to go next. With my history of
injury to ankles and feet it was scary stuff. It would have been so easy
to have slipped, fallen or slid. I thought I am never doing this
again but knew I must banish the negative thoughts and just make sure I
get out of there in one piece. I couldn’t help thinking that if you did
get injured how would anyone get you out. By now I was traveling at less
than walking pace, so I put on some extra cover as I was getting colder
and I wasn’t too far away from the highest part of the route (850m).
While I was making hard work of getting through the first boulder field,
a runner passed me on the other side of the boulders and when we
encountered the second boulder field I was able to follow the route he
found, which made life a lot easier.
Eighteen miles done and
we have reached the highest point, in the next 10 miles we will drop
600m. I pass two mountain rescue men, safety is some way off, these guys
have had to trek miles up here. One of them says, ‘Take care, it’s a bit
slippery’. An understatement! The shelter from the hills has gone and
suddenly we are going straight into driving rain on treacherous rocks.
Footprints in the peat give some reassurance that I am heading in the
right direction. Then one wrong step and I am on my backside in a bath
of wet peat. I finally get back down to the tree line and I begin to
feel safer, and arrive at the next checkpoint with another runner. There
they tell us that the main road is about 3km away – so we probably have
around 10k to go.
I decide to take on water
and gels properly and he pulls away slightly, and I lose sight of him in
the trees. I get to a crossroads of footpaths and continue straight on,
I should have turned left. To begin with the route I am on heads in the
right direction. It strikes me that it is odd that I can’t see anyone
when I emerge into a clearing, it also strikes me that this is a very
long 3k. When the path starts to veer east I know I am in trouble. The
road isn’t that far away, I can hear it. I decide to leave the track and
follow the sound of the cars, I end up in a bog. I eventually find a
track heading in the right direction. I can now see traffic through the
trees, I get to within 50 yards of the road, my heart sinks – there is a
river between me and the road. The river is about the width of a road
and is in spate. I contemplate heading west down the valley looking for
a bridge, but I know there is no crossing in the vicinity because I have
already tried to cut across. I could head alongside the river to the
east, but that is the opposite direction to the way I need to go. I
could go back to that crossroads which is probably 5km back. None of
these options appeals. I take another look at the river, I reckon it is
probably about waist deep. I decide I am going to go for it. With my
first footsteps my feet slide off the smooth stones on the bottom, I
need to take it steady, I don’t want to think about what will happen if
I lose my footing. I make it to the other side and stumble out on to the
bank.
I
have about 5 miles to go alongside a busy road. It surprises me how fast
I am able to run after all that difficult terrain. I reckon I am
probably doing 8:30min/miles for the last 5 miles with a slight gradient
in my favour. I cross the line in Aviemore, it is about as low key as
you can imagine – a man with a clipboard sheltering under the boot of an
estate car, I have finished with a time of 6:19:23, the runner I lost
sight of in the woods finished in 6:06 and he is convinced he took a
wrong turn a little later and also lost time. Two other runners beat me
by a minute. Who knows if I could have beaten the 6:00 time if I hadn’t
got lost? I was relieved to see I was credited with an official time and
a finish, and I was spared the indignity of the wooden spoon (just).
Well we did it, Andrew D (5:01:28), Andrew L (5:02:56) and Gillean in
5:44:12. Long after other races will become a vague memory, I shall
remember the Lairig Ghru and a great weekend spent with Andrew, Jane,
Andrew and Gillean. Thanks
guys.
Ian Kennedy
