Highland Fling 2015: A Very Special Training Run

“I have mixed feelings. There’s pride, yes. There’s wondering about whether I could have done more, safe in the knowledge that I felt bloody knackered when I crossed that line: and the reality is that I could not, as my legs have reminded me on my four runs since.

Now, you know and I know that running 53 miles is a decent challenge. OK: you might not, so please trust me. You also know I’m not one for doing things by half, so whatever shot I gave it was my best one. All of which is perfectly logical. But then you also probably know I like to give myself a hard time sometimes, if only to avoid complacency.”

I could have written those words over the past few days. Truth is, I’ve lifted them from my 2014 post-Fling post. This year’s race was different, but the feelings that have followed less so. Let’s see if I can take you through differences and similarities in a shorter time than it took me to run those fifty-three beautiful miles…

Twelve months ago, running The Fling was my defining moment, the climax of my running age to that point. The oval medal I proudly wore unequivocally stated I was capable of running 53 miles, of going on for almost twelve hours. Twelve months on, this same breath-taking race was…

…well, “training run” is disrespectful. To the course, to the people behind it, to my fellow runners. But my A goal for the year is the West Highland Way Race, which follows the exact same route as the Fling, only it carries on for another forty-two miles. Virtually every run I’ve done in 2015 has been geared towards the WHW, with the exception of the recent distraction of some marathon training for the Greater Manchester Marathon. And, much as I wanted to improve on my 2014 Fling, even this fantabulous race was ultimately a means to an end.

An end a full ninety-five miles from Milngavie where I stayed on Friday, albeit swapping one Premier Inn for another a few hundred yards down the road, just to make it easier to meet Mike, with whom I’d run last year, his fiancée Sarah and Trevor, who was returning to The Fling after a year’s absence. All Premier Inns are pretty much the same: and I say that with glee, as they’re perfect for the traveling runner. Cheap(ish), clean, good beds, free WiFi, a bath as well as a shower… *end of ad*

Let’s be clear: bigger picture notwithstanding, I was focused on The Fling and on improving on my debut race. I am incapable of running races just for the fun of it, for a good deal of the fun lies in the time. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy the views and the camaraderie, or I’d be hanging out with the wrong crew: it just means time matters. Some of it is a matter of time. I run too many training miles for relatively few racing ones to not run hard when I am wearing a number. The current ratio is 8.75 miles in training for every race mile, so the latter have to count.

Mike (who introduced me to the Fling last year, telling me it was “the next natural step” after High Peak 40), Trevor (who’d run it with Mike in 2013) and I had devised a plan. Or, to be accurate, Mike had devised a plan: and a detailed one at that. For behind his tutu-twirling, wand-waving antics (yes, that’s Mike) lies a master tactician: one who had calculated very specific times of arrival and departure for every checkpoint to achieve a very specific race time of 9:57’30”. In the spirit of ultrarunning, let’s be wild and just call that sub-10. Which, to me, appeared as likely for him and improbable for me as his sub-3 goal for Greater Manchester Marathon, which he duly completed in 2:57’13” (his spreadsheet said 2:57’57” but he got carried away) and which I, spreadsheetless (but with a sub-3:10 goal), duly completed in 3:08’56”. So my simple plan was to try and stick with him and Trevor to Beinglas, and then see how things went.

Carrying Mike out of Balmaha. Ahem...
(photo by George Furmage)

Regardless of the distance, my race plans usually involve sticking with (to?) someone, either by prior agreement or just because they seem to be moving at the right pace: and Saturday was to be no exception. We got to Drymen in 1:40’, which for me represented an 11’ improvement on 2014. Over just thirteen miles, that’s not insignificant. Not that I realised any of this: I hadn’t studied my 2014 times, nor had I memorised target checkpoint times. My plan entailed none of that. My plan was just “stick with Mike”. Which, up to Drymen, I did more easily than Trevor, who was struggling to shake off a niggling injury. He reached the checkpoint two minutes after us, but we set off united towards Rowardennan, fourteen miles up the road, which would offer us the first of four opportunities to reacquaint ourselves with our drop-bags. They’re bags with food in them, for any normal people reading this: and mine all featured two slices of pizza with slices of banana in between them (look, at least that way it doesn’t get squashed!), half a pork pie and flapjack, with a litre of defizzed Coke at each of the last two checkpoints. The diet of champions. And mine, too.

We left Balmaha together, but, as Mike continued in full flow, I started to ease off. Mike reached Rowardennan (at 27mi, the halfway point) in 4:24’30”: I followed 1’58” and Trevor 5’46” later. The Fling gets tougher as you go along, and not just because your legs tire: Conic Hill (around mile 18) is beautiful but there’s a clue in the name; the section into the Inversnaid checkpoint (mi 34) is a taster of what’s to come, with the six miles to Beinglas Farm a torturous and tortuous sequence of rocks and roots that prevent you from reaching any rhythm. And, just when you think you can get running again, you hit half a dozen miles of serious climbs before the welcome sight of the descent towards Kirkton and, after a flat few final miles, the celebratory section into Tyndrum. But that’s still a fair way off in this post… sorry!

 

Running up Conic Hill...
there cannae be many better places for a wee jog!
(photo courtesy of Monument Photos - one of the many photographers
who made their great shots available for free!)

I’d felt strong for the first twenty miles, the previous Sunday’s marathon more in my mind than my legs. And I didn’t exactly bonk out around twenty: I just couldn’t keep up with Mike. I was probably still overtaking more runners than were overtaking me at that stage (a trend that would soon be reversed, mind), just not at Mike’s stellar pace. These miles were tough on the mind, which was asking a somewhat inevitable question: “if I feel like this with thirty miles to go, how am I going to feel when I need to keep going for seventy-two – given I’ve never run more than fifty-three before?”

My drop bags - which self-respecting thirty-summat
married father of two wouldn't dress their
teddy bear as an ultrarunner for the labels?

We’ll get back to that question, a faithful companion along the route. Certainly more so than I was for Mike, who at Rowardennan was trying to motivate me to stick with him, pointing out how a second marathon at 12’/mi after the first at 10’/mi would see us hit sub-10hr. I wasn’t debating his logic, just pointing out I didn’t have it in me. Again we left as three, again that soon became two. But, whereas Trevor had got over his initial niggles and stayed loyally by Mike’s side, I decided to follow head (and legs) rather than heart and let them fade into the distance. As Mike shouted back “Don’t let a gap form – keep close!”, I realised the only way of shutting him up would be to slow down and let the gap extend until I was out of hearing range. Amazingly, it worked. Well, I could no longer hear him, anyway.

There are no split times for the Invernsaid CP at mile 34, so I don’t know how big the gap was by that point – although, based on what I can make out on Strava, it was around four minutes, considerably less than I would have guessed. I did get a little boost approaching it, when I overheard someone say it was “just half a mile away”. By that point we’d started our struggle with the undergrowth, and Rowardennan didn’t feel that far behind. Which, at 6.5 miles, it wasn’t: I’d just lost track of miles. When I heard that I did a little jig and found an extra spring in my step, somewhat worrying the runner who’d shared the information in case she’d been overly optimistic. She hadn’t.

Mike and Trevor had sensibly kept on going. Based on what I can make out on my and Mike’s Strava records, it was around ten minutes, which seems about right. However, I cunningly found a quick way of increasing that gap…

…having left the CP lifted by Sandra’s singing arrival, I fell a quarter of a mile later. I looked a right mess, with grazes on both hands and both knees: but the worse look belonged to my right eyebrow, which was bleeding heavily. And no, I hadn’t performed one of “my tricks”: quite simply, I’d kicked a root. And roots always win. I always carry plasters with me so a few running repairs were undertaken easily enough: I might not have been able to see where I’d cut myself, but I could tell I’d stemmed the bleeding and that was enough for me.

(During this time, a couple of runners stopped to check I was OK. They both diagnosed it as “a wee graze”, which indeed it was. A refreshing approach – and one I prefer to a friend’s suggestion he take me to A&E when I caught my ear on a bramble and cut it on a run a couple of years ago!)

It’s hard to calculate exactly from my Strava record, but, based on what I can see and on what it felt at the time, sorting myself out probably cost me around seven minutes. Add it to the ten I was already behind Mike and Trevor and you get closer to the… er, ‘mountain’ that would stand between us cometh Tyndrum.

Let’s be categorically clear on one point: the fall didn’t impact my running action in the slightest. I had no pain in any bone and everything was still working as well (or badly) as usual. It just meant I’d have to reassure a few runners and spectators that I was fine, no matter how much I didn’t look it. And those minutes spent recomposing myself after the fall doubled up as a wee breather, so, all in all, I probably felt all the better for it. I knew this had been a stupid mistake, one landing out of place out of around eighty-thousand throughout the run. It wasn’t like Manchester 2014, brought to a halt by an epileptic seizure (that’s what my tricks are!): this was just a fall. OK, so “fell running” takes on a different meaning for me: so what?

Inversnaid to Beinglas is a challenge I have yet to encounter anywhere else (fortunately), as rocks and roots combine to prevent you from establishing any sort of rhythm. By the time I reached the check point at Beinglas Farm I was 8:15’ into the race, over 29’ less than I had been the previous year. Not that I knew any of this at the time. What I did know, very well, is that from Beinglas to the finish it’s just a half marathon. And I can always manage a half marathon.

I don’t care for positions, other than for the perspective they enable. I’d reached Drymen in 83^rd, Rowardennan in 138^th and Beinglas in 241^st. That, more than anything, tells you how I was never going to be able to keep up with Mike, who, having reached Drymen and Rowardennan in comparable 82^nd and 133^rd, was the 161^st runner to reach Beinglas, with Trevor right behind him. Their ways would part halfway through the final section, with Mike’s gel-fuelled burst of speed over the last few miles seeing him cross the finish line in 145^th position, with a time of 10:11’17”, and Trevor following relatively closely behind, 10:19’37” meaning he clinched 155^th place. No sub-10’, but still fantastic PBs: by a staggering 84’ for Mike (whom I and a couple of other friends had slowed right down to 11:52’ in 2014 after his debut 11:35’ in 2013) and by 76’ for Trevor. And, while they were enjoying their post-race soup and beer, and chatting to other finishers (not least Helen, who came home in 9:13 to win the F40 category by forty minutes!), I was walking my way up hills and jogging down them, smiling inside as runners passed me. I found enough inside me to pick up the pace over the final, flat miles, partly hoping my Garmin was wrong as it had been in 2014, when it recorded the distance as 51.9. But it was half a mile closer to 53 this year, so any dreams of sub-11 were dashed. I still made up a few positions over the last two miles, sprinting (no, really!) over the line in 11:06’08”, forty-six minutes fewer than on April 26, 2014 and just fifty-five behind Mike.

. . .

Here’s how Strava recorded the elevation (in solid grey), my pace (light blue) and my heart rate (that’ll be the magenta line, then): the more dramatic falls in the light blue line should help you spot the checkpoints (the one with the double fall being Inversnaid!):

Keen as I was to grab my beer, roll and soup, I had to make do with water whilst the doc sorted out my grazes. My pain pleased him muchly, signifying the spirit was doing its job, and I was just pleased to be plastered up. That’s two years in a row I’ve been deemed worthy of being seen by the medic: last year it was because the masseuse thought I was cold. Well, I was: I’d been hanging around too long to see her and hadn’t got round to putting on my running jacket! Anyway… two out of two… I’ve checked with Mike and it counts as a streak. Just not one I want to continue!

Both the beer and the soup were worth the wait: I strongly recommend a bottle of Alba (7.5%? it didn’t seem it!) and whoever was behind the lentil soup is a genius. Mike, Sarah, Dave and I saw Trevor and Helen onto the 6pm bus back to Milngavie before heading to the Real Food Cafe for proper ultrarunners’ food, Mike and I indulging in a bacon cheeseburger with chips. Given the contents of my drop bags, this won’t go down in history as my healthiest in terms of eating!

So how will it go down in history?

Trust us, Helen -
you're chuffin' good!
That's why you win stuff!

Running-wise, as a decent day. Beating 2014 was my C goal, behind sub-10 and sub-11. The latter was the most realistic, and it’s quite likely that it was a silly fall, one wrong landing out of 80,000, that cost me it. But it wasn’t a stellar day, by any means. It was a good kick up the backside about the training I need to put in ahead of the West Highland Way Race, for sure: marathon training, with its flat routes and 7somethingminutemiling, has been a bit of a distraction in recent weeks. A welcome one, to some extent: but now it’s time to head for the hills again, maybe get in some back-to-back long runs. That was Helen’s advice: and she knows what she’s talking about, even if you sometimes get the impression she doesn’t know how good she is.

Experience-wise, it was fab. From meeting up with Mike, Sarah and Trevor for dinner at Massimo on the Friday (I am always weary of Italian restaurants in the UK, but this one I recommend!) to our parting meal at the Real Food Cafe, it was great. Even without running the 53 miles together, even finishing (almost) an hour after those you know, experiences like this always feel shared. And all the better for that. What I won’t deny is that, as with most races, for the thrill of discovery is gone when I return. Geography means I hadn’t reccied this when I stood outside Tesco last year: and, whilst knowing what was coming up this time helped with the running, emotionally something was slightly different. It always is, going back.

Fell running. Again.
(Photo by Twirly Boy. As is the next one.)

So, all in all I loved it. Will I be back next year?

Where you may expect a resounding ‘yes’, truth is the answer is a more circumspect ‘maybe’. The summer still holds West Highland Way Race and Devil O’Highlands Footrace in store for me. Hopefully, in 92 days’ time, I will have completed The Triple Crown. Whatever happens on June 20, I can’t see myself returning to the WHW: it’s a once in a lifetime challenge for me. Living near Bristol adds a layer of logistical challenges to the small matter of a 95-mi run, as well as finding a crew, whereas this year I’ve been blessed with the generosity of Mike and his partner Sarah, as well as his parents’ – and I didn’t even realise he’d roped them in! Furthermore, whereas my 2015 focus has been on Ultras, I expect I would like to aim for different goals in 2016. Whisper it quietly, but a sub-3 marathon would make for an “obvious next step”, as Mr Wells might say: I debuted with 3:31’ in Manchester in 2013, two years later I crossed the line in 3:08’. Well, 3:08’56”, so more 3:09’… anyway, you get the gist. I managed that time having spent most of this year training for a 95-mile trail run, squeezing in some tempo runs nearer April 5: so who knows, if I were to focus on a flat 26.2 from the turn of the year… Because I’m not really an ultrarunner. I’m not really a marathon runner, or a parkrunner. I’m a runner, one who enjoys the different challenges posed by different distances and different terrains. Although one that, deep down, will forever consider the marathon distance as the ultimate standard. It has history on its side.

…anyway, that’s waaay into the distance. That’s further away than… well, Fort William from Milngavie. Least it feels thus. Hope I’m right.

Had a nice chat with Stu on the 7pm bus back to Milngavie. If it’s true (and I firmly believe it is) that all runners are equal, then Stu is one of those who are more equal than others, having won the Green Man Ultra around Bristol in 2014 and clocking 9:01’52” on his first experience of the West Highlands. Not that anything in his demeanour or turn of phrase gives away his prowess. I would have a similar experience at Glasgow Airport, waiting for my Bristol-bound flight, when another runner, whom I’d never met, approached me to discuss the prior day’s race. It was a really enjoyable, runner-to-runner conversation, until, at my second attempt to find out his time, one Nathan Montague confessed to a 7:36’. Basically, he’d crossed the line 3:30’ before me. The conversation was still enjoyable thereafter, it was just that my jaw hurt a little from how badly it had fallen to the floor. And I don’t mean in Inversnaid.

In between chatting to Stu on the Saturday evening and Nathan around noon on Sunday, my fortunes had been mixed. I’d had to struggle and straggle from Milngavie Train Station to the Bearsden Premier Inn, a distance that normally would be insignificant but which, after fifty-three miles of running and a somewhat unusual eating pattern, was not without its difficulties. The routine of the post-race Radox bath was enhanced by the consumption of a strawberry milkshake from the nearby McDonald’s, a double treat: firstly because I’ve been steering away from them since starting to run, secondly because it meant I could get to a toilet a good two hundred yards sooner. I then stayed awake for “Match Of The Day” and to faff on social media. Sunday morning came round a little too soon, quite simply because, having spent eleven hours running along the West Highland Way, it hadn’t dawned on me that my windows were looking out to the east – and I’d not taken due care in closing the curtains! Went out for a 2.7mi shuffle for my 927^th consecutive day of running, reaching the start of the West Highland Way to ponder what June would hold in store before heading back to realise that my bowels would still take a while to purify themselves, turning on the TV to catch the start of the London Marathon coverage and reading more of Richard Askwith’s thought-provoking “Running Free”. As this post will have shown, I love running in all its formats, not least its wildest, away from the cities and into the mountains; but you will also have seen that I’m a man for technology and stats, which I pore over before and after runs. Still, it’s a book I’m enjoying: I just wish I’d read the chapter about the danger of roots a day or so earlier… not that, by Askwith’s own admission, what he says is anything but common sense!


Around 11am, I was picked up by Marco, an Italian friend who left Bologna for Glasgow some years ago, who took me to and welcomed me into his house in the West End for lunch. It was all very Italian: no fuss, just an extra seat at the table for a lovely home-cooked meal. His Glaswegian wife (whom he met in Italy) Lyndsay cooked it, but at least Marco and I had stopped to get some fresh bread… It was great to field some easy questions from their young’un, Callum, about the run, before Marco kindly drove me to Glasgow Airport. Slight scare at security, as I’d forgotten to take my Swiss Army knife out of what was now the check-in bag… but they let me go buy an envelope and stamps and post it back to myself. Now I just need to hope it turns up. It’s been a week, after all…

Will I be back in Milngavie in April 2016? Probably not. Will I be back on June 19?

You bet. You bloody bet.

Sure, there were times when I considered cancelling my hotel booking and not bothering making travel arrangements for later in the summer, as, quite honestly, I’m only running Devil O’Highlands to seal the Triple Crown, given the logistics of it for me. But then I fell. I fell and I got right back up. I kept going, getting stronger. When I checked mileage around mile 48, I felt good, and put in a decent final five miles into “By The Way”. Equally, I knew perfectly well that, what in April is the “five miles to the end” point, cometh June represents the halfway mark. But then I won’t reach Drymen in 1:40’ in June, nor in 2014’s 1:51’. I will sit down and calculate some indicative times, but I won’t allow my legs to be slave to them: I just want a clue, not least for my crew’s sake.

I’ve never started, nor found myself in, a race without the firm belief that I’d finish it. I don’t expect that to be any different between 1am on Saturday, June 20^th and whichever point I cross the line in Fort William on the Sunday. That’s neither arrogance nor a façade: it’s the way I have to be. If, then, things don’t go to plan, so be it. But it would take a seizure, an evil route or an unfriendly stone to deny me my dream: all are possible. But none are predictable. I can but predict what little I can control. And, over the next fifty days, I need to do the best I can on what little I can control. That comes down primarily to training and diet. Well, training: I’ll just be sensible with my diet and increase awareness in the final fortnight, but not being able to cook in a family with two young children options are limited. But that’s OK: means that, from a WHW Race perspective, I just need to focus on my training. Just.

Does that mean upping mileage? Probably not, given I’ve been running an average of ten miles a day to date this year. What it will mean is a review of my weekly routine, with the introduction of back-to-back long runs and a few more of 50k training runs. At least those mornings are getting brighter, so heading out to run 50k at 3am should be more enjoyable than it was when I did so twice in the space of fifteen days back in February. As long as the mornings keep getting brighter, my runs will become more enjoyable, and hopefully I’ll get stronger. And, once these beautiful days start getting shorter again…

…well, quite frankly, I don’t care what it does then!

. . .

Time to bid ye farewell. Maybe I’ll meet you in some nondescript car park around a midsummer night’s midnight, maybe I’ll bump into you on Twitter, Facebook or Strava. Maybe you ran The Fling with me, maybe you were one of the awesome marshals or supporters, or maybe you just wanted to read what it was all about. Regardless, well done and thanks: you got to the end. No doubt many DNF’d.

Finally, thanks to Mike and Trevor, for sharing the experience; to Sarah, for her boundless unselfishness in coming out to support us; to Johnny Duncan, for organising the best races (but for his new role as Devil O’Highlands race director I may not be going for the triple crown…); to Sandra, for her singing at Inversnaid; to those who stopped to check how I was, to those who asked, because they weren’t to know I was fine; and to Stu and Nathan for the chats. Neither was obliged to reassure me about running the West Highland Way Race. Both did. Thanks.

And one last goodbye…

…to the West Highland Way. See you in fifty days’ time, on June 20. When, more than ever, it won’t be just about the running.