Training Log Archive: SarahD

LK wander - fresh air & leg stretch

Then a swim in Queen's Loch. Didn't really plan on staying in so long, but it felt good.
Generally feeling fine, but still stupidly sleepy!

Gently heading for home. V sleepy but otherwise feeling good. Morning swim in the sea was a fab wakener as well as washing off some of the sweat and grime!

After a proper day of relaxing and refuelling I felt 100 times better and was ready for the final assault to help pick off the Mamores. Out into the night again with both HD & SS to tackle the eastern 4 from Kinlochleven before handing on to fresher legged KB & CB to finish off the job. Beautiful clear night with plenty of silhouetted mountains and lochs, mild and absolutely no wind. After yesterday’s physical and mental battle this was just a joy and it felt amazing to be able to enjoy one last adventure in great company. The cloud came in a bit to spoil the sunrise, but then later we found ourselves rising above it. A bit of added spice on H’s dodgy line up onto the BM ridge added to the morning’s entertainment. After handing over beyond Na Gruaghaichean we relaxed and pottered back down to KLL, suddenly aware of lots of aches and pains as well as extreme tiredness. Just enough time to chill a bit before driving onwards to Mull and the final assault

Ben More en masse at a very leisurely pace! Gorgeous evening when we set off but had clagged in and was chilly by the summit. Wouldn’t really have been fitting to have had anything better.
All round amazing few weeks. Reflections to follow….

Take 2 on south Etive hills with HD - Glas Beinn Mhor, Beinn Nan Aighenan & Ben Starav. Much brighter looking morning. Dried up, mild and relatively calm, in the valley bottom at least. Stream level had dropped a huge amount since previous day too, though still a white water raging torrent! However, for the first time, the body really didn’t want to get going. It was a massive struggle to wake and get up at 3am, and my head couldn’t contemplate what was to come. This was my biggest mental test yet, but I kept trying to tell myself it was mind over matter and just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I did, and it worked, and though I perhaps didn’t appreciate these hills as much as they deserved I did eventually find some happiness in being up there. Thankfully the rain stayed off, the wind was only blowing us over for some of the time, and the clag occasionally cleared out to give some atmospheric views!
Relieved to get through this one.

Failed attempt on part of VWMR South Etive leg with HD. Completely grim again with extreme winds and incessant rain. Really not excited at the prospect of heading into the hills, but others had been putting themselves out there and felt I should try to do the same. Not clear how far K, S & L would get but after communicating from them on Stob Coire an Albannaich, they decided to descend to the next col and we would head up the valley path to meet them on the way down. Making sure to stick to the east bank as the river would be uncrossable. So we headed out into the grimness. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so much water streaming off the hills, with the stream an absolute roaring white water torrent, and even the wee burns feeding it took some crossing. After heading up the glen for a while I started twitching that we hadn’t seen the others and sent various messages through on the chat with our location etc., but the other team were clearly out of signal. Eventually I was certain that we had missed, and just at that point got communication back that they were almost down at the bottom…. Somehow we’d missed each other on different strands of the boggy path. We headed down to meet them knowing that the best plan now was to call a halt until better weather came in the next day.

VWMR Leg 111 Plan B Blackmount 2 - Stob a Choire Odhair & Stob Ghabhar MM. Nice straightforward one on well worn paths. Dry at the start but clagged in, windy and wet on the tops. Good to get back on the job.
Love that I look at 16km with 1,200m climb and feel like I’ve got an easy day :-))