Ballachulish

The rain had more or less stopped by the time I picked my bike up again this morning which was a relief. The first part was a 34mile cycle, about half of which off road. My cross bike carved through mud, rumbled over rough tracks and flew along the road. It was a joy and a pleasure to ride. I passed the time on the hard parts by mentally penning a gushing letter to Surly to tell them how great their bike is. I may yet send it. I had made sure I wasnt carrying too much today which made all the difference.

I got into Fort William pretty much on schedule and steeled myself for the 14 mile off road run.

I had spoken to a couple of friends about this last night, who were also doing the race, I reckoned I would take about 3 hours to do this part. "Really?" said Tom, raising his eyebrows. "I suppose you have to take into account the fact that it is off road and so will be harder". "Yep, that's what I was thinking" said I.

Hah!

It wasn't so much of a run as more of a gruelling hill walk. It took in something that I refer to as the Rocky Descent of Death which was terrifying. It then passed on to a relentless uphill gradient which was rather soul destroying as I would normally skip up it no bother. But I was tired. So was almost everybody else. Then there was several miles of boulder strewn pathway which, with tired legs was very treacherous to run on. Somewhere along the line I had miscalculated how far I had come, thinking I had run 8 miles and had 6 to go. Gutting then a little while later, to reach a little halfway point which told me I had 7 miles to go.. It was also at this point that I realised it was getting harder to suck water out of my water bag, meaning supplies were running low. Not a good moment. Sometime after this was a massively steep hill to climb up. The sight of Loch Leven on reaching the top was very wonderful indeed! Shame then that a long and almost vertical mud slide stood between me and it. I got down in one piece, accompanied by the sounds of thuds and yells as people fell left right and centre. The guy I kayaked across Loch Leven with had blood running down his chin from having fallen and been whacked in the mouth with a rock.

Bit of a rollercoaster all round, it was hard but some bits were brilliant and some bits were awful painful slogging. I had aimed to finish in the top 200, a modest sounding goal but I reckon that if I am faster than most people then that is pretty good (and most competitors were men as well). My husband texted me to tell me that I had made it! Very chuffed!