Training Log Archive: Bash

Ultimate XC results are posted now. Congrats to our friends who braved this tough stage race, with an extra cheer for Getawaystix who took the victory and for Relentless who *just* missed the podium. And for Harps and T. Rex and FB and... oh heck, an extra cheer for them all.

OK, it's for real now. I've registered for the Run for the Toad 50K trail race on Oct. 2. Aieee!! According to their recommended program, I've trained too much this week. So far, so good.

At 11:15 a.m., Charlotte Vasarhelyi is at Clappison's Corners. Without checking the details, I'd guess she's got about 150 km left to the end of the Bruce Trail. She usually travels 4-5 km/hr from now until sunset, including support stops.

Hamilton-area Attackpointers, I'm sure she'd love to have some friendly, supportive visitors along the trail or at roadside stops. I can provide a cell phone # for the support crew if you write me. (But they often don't have signal so it can be easier to go looking for her.)

At 4:00pm Charlotte left Sherman's Falls in Dundas; this is at the 45.9km mark on Map # 8 of the 25th Edition Bruce Trail guide. If anyone wants to come out to offer support, she usually runs till at least 8:30 and often until 9:30.

OK, the Milton Basement Tree Huggers are going. (That's Tiny and me.) Who else is coming to the U.S. 24-hr Rogaining Champs in Watkins Glen, NY on the long August weekend? Price goes up after tomorrow - although it's still really inexpensive. As Canadians, we just have to have our entry postmarked by tomorrow to get the earlybird price; we don't have to pay until we get there. The event director is one of the most experienced rogaine organizers in North America, so it should be good.

After spending 10 hrs on the trails over the past couple of days, I decided to take a break by... going for a trail run. I thought about postponing to rest my feet but Rocky and I had planned it last week, so I went anyway. It was great! Fun and chatty, and I felt really good, maybe because it was so much cooler. I'm also doing the 25K Creemore Vertical Challenge on Saturday. I'm all about the trail running this week! :-)

Last night was our second night of hosting the crew base camp for Charlotte Vasarhelyi's bid to break the Bruce Trail solo run record. Yesterday's alarm went off at 4 a.m. but because she was running in Caledon today, I got to sleep in till 4:30 a.m. before getting up to make coffee and toast bagels for the people sleeping on Thermarests in odd corners of our house.

Goose and Turbo took the first shift of pacing, then Baloney ran through Forks of the Credit. Then Ron Gehl and I took over for the afternoon, starting with the climb up Devil's Pulpit on the Niagara Escarpment, then continuing through mostly rocky, muddy terrain to the far side of Terra Cotta Conservation Area. Char ran more today but the humidity and 27C temperature made her a little queasy by mid-afternoon. At the 50K mark, ThreePinJim, her longtime training partner, took over alone in hopes that the injection of new blood might inspire her to put in some extra kilometers in the evening. It worked - she did 72 km today and got most of the way to Milton. Almost 700 km down, about 200 km to go!

If any Milton/Hamilton trail runners have time available during the day on Tues/Wed of this week, write me for ThreePinJim's cell phone. I think he may be overworked in the next couple of days.

It was fun to meet longtime ultrarunner Ron Gehl. There is absolutely *no* mystery as to how his daughter Laurie McGrath became one of the top ultrarunners in North America. Whereas most people might get to know you by asking things like, "How do you know Charlotte?" or "How long have you lived in Caledon?", one of Ron's first questions to me was, "When are you doing a 100-miler?" I laughed and said that I'm working toward my first 50K. He immediately started discussing the race calendar, recommending a good candidate event and talking about the strategy I should use to run four 20K laps. "Wait a minute, Ron - 4 laps would be a 50-miler. I'm just thinking about a 50K." "Oh, don't bother with that. Once you get going, you might as well just do the 50-miler. And then you should do a 100-miler. And here's how you'll prepare for that..." I get the feeling that it would be virtually impossible to grow up in his household and *not* become an ultrarunner!

Kudos to Char for her amazing effort. She will break the record if she finishes by Saturday morning, and with "only" a little over 200 km left, things are looking very, very good.

A special tip of the hat to Baloney and Trav, whose calm, organized, experienced approach to both the base camps and the trail running contributed hugely to the success of Char's last couple of days. ThreePinJim will be the team leader over the next few days and is doing a bang-up job too.

Here are some random photos showing Char and crew, including Laurie McGrath, Goose, Ron, Baloney, ThreePinJim and me.

Congrats to Getawaystix on winning the Ultimate XC Challenge 3-day stage race at Mont Tremblant. Awesome job!

When ultra-running legend Laurie McGrath was unable to continue pacing Charlotte Vasarhelyi on the Bruce Trail today, Goose and I stepped in. OK, technically, the only reason Laurie couldn't continue was because she had to get back to the city to do something with her family. But anyway...

We started at Mono Centre and came down through Hockley Valley, then across Airport Road and south to 5th Sideroad. Char was a total rock star. She has run approximately 600 km in 9 days with 394 km to go. Her knees don't bend very far and her feet are blistered but she just keeps on trucking.

Goose was an awesome coach and motivator, pacing 5 meters in front of her and encouraging her to run whenever the trail was good. I stayed a short distance ahead of them. My job was to read the map and watch for blazes to make absolutely certain that we didn't make any wrong turns. 894 km is far enough and Char doesn't want to do any more. I also provided updates from the Garmin data, e.g. "3 km till we see your support crew". Thunderstorms swept in and we got thoroughly soaked. Lots of hills, roots and mud and even some stinging nettles. Can't think of a finer way to spend an afternoon! :-)

Busy day of watching other people involved in sports events:

- 'Bent managed to squeeze in an MRI on his knee while doing the 24 Hrs of Summer Solstice mountain bike relay with ThreePinJim. His first lap was 1:02 so he's doing fine. I also checked in on 2-Min and her faithful support crew, PhattyJR. Unfortunately, a rude biker knocked her over on her first lap; fortunately, he went down as well. Just missed seeing Crash but she was leading the Women's Solo category after 3 laps so I've got my fingers crossed for her. The race started 2 hours late due to heavy rain and will only be a 22-hr event this year. The trails looked pretty slick - hope everyone stays safe.

- Charlotte Vasarhelyi and support crew are here for the night during their Bruce Trail run and will be back tomorrow night for base camp once again. Lots of activity, food, tasks, blister repair, massage, laundry and planning. Char is doing very well for someone who has run over 500 km in 8 days. It's awesome having Trav and Baloney here to share their ultra experience with the team and roll up their sleeves to help out with whatever needs doing.

- Thanks to Dee, I'm also keeping an eye on the tough competition in the Ultimate XC stage race in Quebec. Going into tomorrow's challenging 100 km mountain bike race, Benoit has a 1 minute 25 second lead over Getawaystix. Benoit was ahead on the paddle and Getawaystix was ahead on the run. Relentless and Harps are up with the leaders too and M&M finished 2nd female in today's 56K trail run. Lots of great racing by our Ontario friends - hope tomorrow goes well for all!

It's exciting as Charlotte V. gets closer to our place in her bid to set a new speed record for running the Bruce Trail. By this evening, she should have completed about 500 km of the 894 km trail in 7 days. (The length is constantly changing due to trail re-reroutes.) Base camp was going to be here tonight but it has been postponed to tomorrow night since she will be closer to Creemore when she stops today. Looking forward to welcoming the crew and cheering her on!

Around Palgrave West with BulletDog. It felt like a nice pace I could maintain for awhile. I did some out-and-back segments to avoid poison ivy patches. Dogs can bring PI home and share the joy so I kept an eagle eye out for the stuff. I have tiny patch of it on my shin now, probably from Saturday's "Why Just Run" event. Amazing it's not worse, given how much PI there was. 1L had a very impressive case!

Gulp. The initial plan seemed to be that the Bruce Trail running team would pass by our place on Friday night and bring all their own favourite food. It now sounds like it may be Saturday night and the previous base camps have been serving feasts worthy of a professional chef. The problem? 'Bent is our household cook and he has a 24-hr bike race on Sat/Sun. You can't get food delivered where we live. Can I learn to cook by Saturday night?! Doubtful.

While watching the Colbert Report.

Was that an earthquake? (1:45 p.m.) The house really shook. Freaky.
[Edit - Yup, apparently it was an earthquake.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/repor...]

As of this morning, Charlotte Vasarhelyi had run 322 km of the Bruce Trail in 4 days. With trail re-routes, her total distance will be about 900 km. Looking forward to seeing her and the crew this weekend!

Rode to Albion Hills and met Coach LD and Leanimal (and a brief guest appearance by Phatty) for a ride around the 24 Hrs of Summer Solstice race lap. It's nice and flowy; the trails at Albion are great this year after all the improvements! With Leanimal 14 weeks pregnant and her bike lacking a functional granny gear, I was able to hang onto her back wheel for once. I'll enjoy it while I can! I felt good physically but haven't done a lot of technical riding yet this year, and it showed. Yesterday's heavy rain made the trails and tree roots greasy in places, and my semi-slick tires weren't biting. I stayed rubber side down until the last bit of trail when the others had headed home, then the tires slid out on a banked turn and I crashed hard into the dirt on my right side. No real harm done but considerable soap, shampoo and laundry detergent were required to deal with the situation.

This morning's Globe mentioned something new (to me) - Powerpoint Karaoke. At last, a competition in which I could be a serious contender, thanks to my past jobs. Phatty would be good too.

Love it! The Gettysburg Address reduced to 6 banal Powerpoint slides.

I know, I know - treadmill, bleaaghh. I wasn't wimping out of running in today's downpour (at least, that's not the only reason!) I can't cheat with intervals on the treadmill so it forces me to do what I hate. Listened to a couple of interesting Radiolab podcasts on mathematics. Thanks for pointing me in their direction, Urthbuoy!

Interesting new thing learned while running today: Benford's Rule:

"Most people intuitively believe that in any string of numbers of a naturally occurring data set each digit, one through nine, has an equal probability of being the first digit. Benford’s distribution showed that this intuition is incorrect. It is this belief and practice of the fraudster that all digits should be regular that creates data sets which evoke suspicions of fraud."

"...Benford’s probability distribution (in percent) of the first digit of any number within a database that meets the criteria described above should be as follows:
1 = 30.10
2 = 17.61
3 = 12.49
4 = 9.69
5 = 7.92
6 = 6.69
7 = 5.80
8 = 5.12
9 = 4.58"

What this means is that the first digit of a person's bank account balance is far more likely to be 1 than 9 - and this rule applies to many kinds of numerical databases. Even the IRS uses it to look for financial fraud, e.g. fake tax deductions. Cool. (And a little geeky, I guess.) (P.S. Fellow geeks should click here.)

While watching The Daily Show.

Ran from our place to the main Bruce Trail at Glen Haffy and back. It's mostly Bruce Trail side trail with a "lollipop" loop in the Dingle. I took the Lookout Trail up K2 - weeds up to my neck in places. The trail got so unrecognizable that I was looking for the position of the sun and wondering if I'd made a wrong turn. I took the new Bruce Trail side trail back down K2 - really nice. I didn't push but it felt like a decent effort (as Harps might say) due to the heat and humidity. It was cool in Scotland and I need to acclimatize to summer in Ontario. Wildlife report: one deer and lots of very musical hermit thrushes.

First time wearing my new Salomon Exo calf compression sleeves. The only negative was that they added warmth but otherwise they felt great and I really like that they're not compression socks, which feel funny on my feet. They also fend off weeds and poison ivy and, of course, they make me look almost as cool as Phatty.

Today was a test run to see if I will be able to help pace Charlotte Vasarhelyi in her attempt to break the Bruce Trail solo speed record. She's aiming for 11 days - the previous record is 14 days, 10 hrs. The base camp is at our place on Friday night. She has (hopefully) just completed her 3rd day of running 80-90 km/day.

Sending good thoughts (but not *warm* thoughts on this steamy day) to Crash and Mike in Virginia where they are trying to qualify for the World XTERRA Champs in Hawaii once again. Hope it went well, guys!

Yahoo! Crash was 2nd in her age group and 7th woman overall. If I'm reading the rules correctly, I *think* she qualified for the World Champs today - but XTERRA is a bit weird about non-U.S. citizens sometimes.

'Bent, Coach LD and I rode to The Shed Coffee Bar in Belfountain via rail trail to Inglewood then muddy, rocky escarpment trails the rest of the way, and home via slightly different single track trails and the rail trail. It was a great day to be out, which must explain why we met so many people we know!

We chatted with Caron and Trent running on the rail trail, Joe (hard working MTB trail maintenance volunteer) on the bike trail near Inglewood, Dave Corner and Bruce Day at The Shed (wearing the cool new Shed bike clothing), Nikki and Cheryl at The Shed in their tennis gear, Don & Jeff & Leigh outside Caledon Hills Cycling after their road ride, and Wayne after his MTB ride in Palgrave.

We also stopped at the first-ever Lemonade and Cherry Juice stand we've seen along the rail trail. How could anyone make that decision? I had to mix it half and half. Great day. (Yeah I know, I said that already.) 'Bent had jet engines in his legs and Coach LD is always strong, so I worked to hang onto the back!

Phatty and I took a road trip to the Why Just Run race at Morningside Park. As usual, the adventure course had a fun, creative format with some navigation twists.

I decided to use my thumb compass for the first time in an event and it was hilarious how it messed with my mind. I know it will get easier with practice but I found myself doing everything differently, even when there was no reason to. Need to run due south? Well, it shouldn't be any different with a thumb compass - except it was, at first.

I found it distracting to constantly re-orient the map and I was ignoring important things like contours because of my obsession with using the thumb compass. None of this was unexpected and I laughed at myself a lot. I made a huge blunder between #1 and #2 so I was by myself after that. There was a 90-minute maximum and I had to bail to the finish with a few controls left to go to avoid being overtime. It was still a great time and a necessary learning experience. I'll try the thumb compass again soon. (Although I have to say that it is *much* easier using it when Hammer is at my elbow coaching me. Too bad I can't hire him to shadow me.)

Congrats to Phatty on placing 3rd overall and the first finisher with no errors in the micro-O.

Caron's Hard Core DVD. Valerie was wavering about doing The DVD on Friday, so I made a deal to do it this weekend if she followed through. Her hubby is out of town so I was counting on her enjoying some nice wine and ice cream and blowing off The DVD. But she did it, darn her, so today I had to do it too!!

I made a flippant remark in my LAMM race report about the possibility of slipping down a mountain side in Scotland. I didn't realize that someone in the race had done just that. Today the LAMM website posted a chilling report written by the racers explaining why we heard a helicopter on Sunday. Very scary accident and great to know that both racers will be OK.

There was another interesting report written by a pair of repentant adventure racers who signed up for the A course because they were strong physically, but their lack of nav experience combined with Sunday's foggy weather conditions and a sore knee to mess them up. Another call for the busy Arrochar Mountain Rescue Team with lots of action by the SportIdent team trying to establish their location. Some good introspection: "The real problem is quite common among fellow Adventure Racers. We left it too late to call it a day and head for home. This was not an Adventure Race after all."

Trying to figure out a 5K time trial loop on hilly trails. There's too much poison ivy to use the loop I set up before. This one is close but not quite right. Hot day to be out!

Getting back into it!

Great to chat with FB when he dropped by, then did some upper body work. Strength training... the New Frontier!

The LAMM race director has asked if they can link my AP race report to their website - cool!

It's been over 3 weeks since my last run, so time to start building up again. I'd like to do my first 50 km trail race this year so there's a lot of building to be done. I explored Palgrave West, mostly on trail but a little off, checking the progress of this year's crops of poison ivy, stinging nettles and prickly stuff. Seems to be a great season for poison ivy and there must have been some good storms while we were away because there are medium branches down everywhere and a big tangled mess of trees down in KBash Woods. Things felt pretty good but I'm not used to warm weather yet - and it's not that warm for June!

Rodney Yee for Flexibility. Much needed!

----------------
Lowe Alpine Mountain Marathon (LAMM)
Glen Fyne, Scotland
Warning: long report!

Richard and I did the Björkliden Arctic Mountain Marathon in Sweden last year. That was our first experience with this race format where teams of two navigate a point-to-point course on foot through mountainous terrain over 5-10 hours on Day 1 of a 2-day event. The final checkpoint is a remote site where all competitors spend the night. Teams must carry camping gear including tent, stove, sleeping bags, meals, etc. Top teams have 4-5 kg packs, carrying very little water and using specialized gear like balloon-based sleeping pads. On the second morning, racers receive a map with another point-to-point course that takes them to the finish line. In addition to the usual challenges of a long navigation event, the mountain environment injects some extra elements - cliffs, swollen rivers, loose rock, steep slopes, fog and weather extremes. Racers also need to carry enough gear to stay warm and fed for 12-16 hours while they're stopped.

Mountain marathons originated in the U.K. and last year's British BAMM winners recommended LAMM to us because of its consistently good course setting and long June daylight hours.

We expected Richard's gimpy knee to feel better by now but, sadly, it didn't, so we couldn't "race" LAMM. Still, it was an excellent adventure built into a vacation. After much angst we selected the B course from the range of Elite, A, B, C, D, and Score-O. Almost 75% of teams race C, D, or Score-O, including some very fit, experienced people. Fewer than 10% of teams do Elite or A. None of the courses is easy; in fact, the highest altitude control was on the D course.

There was free camping at the event centre. Organizers recommended a second tent for this base camp which enabled racers to pack their nice, dry tents for the race. We only had one tent and it looked like rain, so we splurged on another night in the converted church in Inveraray.



Day 1

Saturday morning dawned clear and sunny with an excellent forecast. We'd been assigned an "assembly time" of 7:40 a.m. They don't tell you exactly what will happen; this year we were put on buses to the appropriate start location, which was different by course.



We were handed our race maps as we approached the bus waiting area. There were circles marking all the controls for all the courses, but we still had no idea which controls were ours, where the start was or where the camp was. At 66 cm X 77 cm, this 1:40,000 laminated map was big and unwieldy but it was high quality and great to use.



We were bused to Inveruglas on the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond, then immediately took the high road.



At the start line, teams were sent out at intervals. There were lots of shorts and capris on the B course. It was chilly so we knew that our competitors weren't planning to limp along with trekking poles!



After punching the start control, we were handed control descriptions - 8 controls on our course plus the finish. Each control had a UTM and we used it to mark the course on our map. Most people knelt on the ground for several minutes to do map work on the clock.



You can see Richard's SportIdent card strapped to his wrist with a non-removable band.



Like last year in Sweden, each racer carried an SI card for the entire weekend and it was cut off at the finish line. Both teammates had to punch each control. I like this system a lot better than the honour system, which unfortunately doesn't work very well for some teams.

We were still all together as we headed up (up, up) to the 1st control. As the day went on, teams spread out.



In other events where we've used maps with similar scale and detail, the controls have normally been placed on big, obvious features with the flags hung high. The emphasis has been on route choice, not on fine navigation within the control circle. At LAMM, it's both. Some of the controls were placed on more subtle features although they were accurately placed and supported by the map. The flags, often faded, were on the ground held down with rocks. I suppose that's because there are no trees and it would be difficult to use control stands in rocky terrain. The flags were sometimes hard to see even when we were close by, so as we approached, we watched for smiling racers leaving the control. For some reason, a few people liked to sit by the control flags to plan their route to the next control, which was occasionally helpful as we approached. Can you see control #1 in this photo?



After #1, we continued up a beautiful ridge as Loch Lomond receded in the distance.



Spectacular scenery! There was only one place in this area where I worried about slipping and plunging down a mountain side. (Which seems to happen a little too often in Scotland, according to the newspapers.)









Richard had a new toy for this race, which concerned me, since there is nothing more distracting to a boy than a new toy. It was a UV water purifier. 45 seconds to do a bottle. No waiting. Very cool. So cool that he marched 5 minutes up the steep slope toward this lake (actually a "lochan") before he realized that his map was still lying beside the stream at the bottom of the hill. :-(



Here's a rare moment of running. Unfortunately, Richard's good knee started to hurt along with the bad one as a result of the steep descents, so we reverted to hiking.



Here's a cool stream junction control. It was so subtle that we saw a team 50 meters away who didn't realize that the control was down here.



Soon after, Richard's knees both began to protest loudly so we took our time coming up the long valley to the finish line. These photos show only part of the camp from the high point where we put our tent. By the end, there were about 500 racer tents plus big tents for organizers and the mountain rescue team.





Before we cooled down, we got our tent set up and put our cozy layers on.



Boiled some water on our Heineken can stove and had dinner in a foil bag.



A close-up of Richard's feet. Note the essential piece of gear for a mountain marathon - the thing we didn't know to bring to BAMM. Plastic bags for your feet so you can wear your dry Sunday socks in your wet Saturday shoes. Simple and brilliant! We got plastic foot bags with a sponsor's name as race swag.



We chatted with people in the tents around us, some of whom raised their eyebrows to hear that we'd tried the B course on our first go. Since we placed 66th of 84 teams today, I can see why!

I guiltily confessed to having brought a luxury item to while away the long evening - an iPod loaded with podcasts. The other racers laughed - turns out most of them had brought iPods too. One guy was getting updates on the England/U.S.A. World Cup soccer game on his iPhone as we talked. Down at the main tents, people were gathered around a car radio listening to the same game and cheering. Others were looking at the Saturday maps with the course setter's preferred route marked on each one. Results were posted and continually updated as latecomers drifted in. The atmosphere was social as people compared stories of their day.



We fell asleep easily and were too warm - quite different from Sweden.

Day 2

It rained hard in the night. Around 5:50 a.m., a bagpiper began marching among the tents to deliver a wake-up call over the next 15 minutes. Fantastic!



We made a quick breakfast including surprisingly good Starbucks instant coffee. The clouds were sitting low on the hills. I was definitely going to need my compass today! (And my coffee.)





There was a chasing start for teams within 90 minutes of the leaders but the rest of us could start any time between 7-8 a.m. Once again, we were handed control descriptions with UTMs after we had punched the start control, then we had to figure out where we were going.



At first, we mostly had light rain.



Then visibility got very limited. At times, we could be 100 meters away from a mountain and not know it. Compass, compass, compass.



We passed over a hydro dam.



You can imagine how easy it was to see this flag on a foggy day.



Must. Trust. Compass.



Shortly after this, we needed to put on more layers. Even the racers in short shorts started to dress like they were in the mountains. Some of them, anyway.



I'm happy in this photo because the clouds have lifted enough at a pass to confirm that the terrain ahead looks correct. Also, my new waterproof Sealskinz toque is working very well, even though it makes me look like a Dr. Seuss character.



This ridge was stunningly beautiful in a misty, Lord of the Rings sort of way.









The last part of today's course was a steep, slippery descent - first toward a control at a stream junction, then down to sea level to the finish line. I felt soooo sorry for Richard, who had been eating ibuprofen like it was candy.





And we made it! Not exactly a stellar performance but that wasn't the point, given Richard's injury. We were 66th on both days and 66th overall of 84 teams on the B course. We finished in 150% of the winner's time, which is the unofficial guideline for whether you should be on the B course. It's a *very* good thing we dropped down from the A - yikes. The B course had low numbers of women and rookies (I am both!), and the courses above us had even fewer. There were a bunch of drop-outs and mispunches in today's bad weather, and most people were doing a shorter course than ours. So we're trying not to be too embarrassed about placing 66th! :-)



Our SPOT GPS tracker worked on Day 2 but not on Day 1.

Lots of other info and photos, including maps showing the courses, are on the LAMM website.

I chatted with Andy Symonds, a runner on the Salomon U.K. team who spent some time at Salomon HQ with Phil Villeneuve in France this year. He was one of the BAMM winners who suggested that we do the LAMM. This year he won the Elite category of LAMM for the 2nd year in a row. Must be all that great Salomon gear! :-)

This was great fun and the story may not be over. We talked to a top racer on the A course and he said we also have to try the Highlander Mountain Marathon in Scotland. It's in April when it can be much colder, so organizers provide a hot meal at the mid-camp. The coolest thing is, they hold a ceilidh at night! (Check out Pete and Leanne's wedding photos to see a ceilidh in action.) So we may need to go back again some time soon. Maybe with a few more Canadian friends?

Moving info up here for people who like watching races. They're making updates to the race website already so maybe it will be interesting over the weekend.

LAMM website with some updates during the event:

Our SPOT GPS tracker (which has some test data from other outings). I'm hoping to transmit on Sat/Sun but the unit is being temperamental. Fyi, it's 5 hours later here and we hope to be done by 11 a.m. EST on Sunday. We're starting at 7:40 a.m. on Saturday, i.e. 2:40 a.m. at home.

Saturday - 25 km, 1700 m elevation
Sunday - 23 km, 950 m elevation

Spent the day hanging around Inveraray, the longtime stomping grounds of the Campbell clan. Checked out our castle and it's looking great.



Both 'Bent and I noticed an uncanny resemblance to my Dad and grandfather in portraits of the Dukes of Argyll from 200-300 years ago. Who knows? I'm 7th generation Canadian so I'm certainly not a close relative of the current Duke. He sounds like an interesting character with multiple wins at the World Elephant Polo Championships.

The Campbells have a nice forest out back.



Every family has its black sheep.



Our digs are pretty nice here because we arrived in town on a busy weekend. We're in the honeymoon suite in a converted church overlooking Loch Fyne. Tomorrow night we'll be sleeping on boggy ground at 400 m wearing all our layers (after the mandatory tick check) and waiting for the chilly drizzle to begin. Both types of accommodation have their merits!



We went to register for LAMM and it gave me the usual butterflies. Here's how it works. We'll be handed a map as we walk to the starting line. It's huge - 66 cm X 77 cm - and laminated because we paid for that option. Otherwise, you'd need to get it into a map case.

All controls for all courses are marked on it with red circles (i.e. a master map) but there will be no indication of which controls belong to our course. As soon as the clock starts, we will be handed a control description sheet with the UTMs for our controls. We need to figure out which controls on the map belong to our course and which sequence to visit them in. I'm assuming that both days' courses will be on the map so it will be pretty busy. The map is posted on the race website now without any controls.

Pack weighs 8.6 kg, about 1.1 kg more than last year but I think I've got 1L more of H2O at this point. Should be interesting... report will come in a few days.

Headed south from Inverness after breakfast without knowing where we would end up tonight. There was something very cool and totally random about going online at noon to find out where we would be spending the rest of our Scottish vacation. And it was good news. My one regret on this trip was that I didn't make time to go to Inveraray to see the ancestral lands of the Campbells - and that's where our race is going to be! That has to be a good sign, doesn't it? We'll be starting in Glen Fyne at the northern tip of Loch Fyne (which is an ocean fiord, not a lake). Here's what it looks like from the road. We're not allowed to go in there until tomorrow at 3 p.m.



We saw some very steep, rocky terrain along the road - probably only for the Elites and A course racers though! Wishful thinking.

Another good omen for the Tree Huggers (hopefully) is this feature on the estate where the race is being held.



Here's Inveraray where it's great to be a Campbell - the opposite of the "No Campbells" sign in Glencoe. Barb Bryant will *really* be wishing she was here now. :-)



The only bad news about the race location was that it was *way* further west than the hints had indicated so we had a long drive across the country to get here. We're on the west coast directly west of Loch Lomond. However, as tourists, it wasn't exactly a hardship to drive a long way. And we visited Blair Castle enroute which was really nice. Tomorrow we'll visit Inveraray Castle to make sure my relatives are doing a good job taking care of the place. It's easy to taper around here. Much too easy!

Big day tomorrow. At 12 noon, the organizers of the Lowe Alpine Mountain Marathon will announce the location of the race. We only know it's within 90 minutes to the north of Glasgow and Edinburgh, so tomorrow morning we will start driving generally south from Inverness, then at noon we'll need to find Internet access to learn where we're driving in the afternoon. Registration is Friday afternoon but we'd like to find a B&B nearby, and hundreds of other racers will be on the phone and online looking for accommodation.

'Bent's knee continues to bug him - he's got an MRI right after we get home. We've dropped to the B course in hopes of not aggravating it too much. They offer Elite, A, B, C, D and Score-O courses. This year the B course covers about 48 km over mountainous terrain during the 2-day race, and all racers camp at a remote site on Sat. night. We carry lightweight camping gear and we don't learn the campsite location until we get our map on the way to the starting line in the morning. We're told that it's an "unusual" site this year - quite high, rugged and boggy.

After carrying my bike helmet all over Scotland, I needed to use it at least once. When it was pouring at breakfast (we've been lucky - we'd expected drizzly weather most of the time), we decided to explore some lower altitude trails in Rothiemurchus Forest outside Aviemore in Cairngorms National Park.

The forested areas reminded us of Canada.





We rode to a couple of very Canadian-looking lochs on well-maintained double track. About half our distance was on a rougher ATV-style trail with lots of puddles and a few stream crossings of different depths. It was awesome - like a really fun adventure race bike ride with lots of water and very little mud. That part of the ride took us above the treeline into sub-arctic vegetation as we headed up the long valley of Glen Eichan, which ends at beautiful Loch Eichan set in a crag surrounded by towering cliffs.

We're told that Scotland is the best country in the world for mountain biking - lots of trails and a culture that supports the sport better than many places. If you brought your own bike here, there would be lots of places to ride. Since we need to rent, it narrows down our choices, but Rothiemurchus was perfect for today's misty weather anyway.

I was reminded of how important clipless pedals are! And when my feet got bounced off the pedals occasionally, I missed my woman-specific gel bike seat. It's been awhile since I've ridden hardtail with front suspension and it took awhile to remember to stand up sometimes. The one thing I didn't mind was having only 8 gears in an internal hub (a lesser Rohloff-style). At least that didn't hurt - ow!!

Bothy Bikes was a very friendly bike shop by the trailhead; we chatted with staff for half an hour after our return. Did some shopping too - the range of Sealskinz products here is huge compared to back home.

No energy for whittling down the pics tonight, so here's a whole bunch. It looks weird to see 'Bent on a non-'Bent bike.

Took about 3 hours to drive clear across the country from Portree on the Isle of Skye to Inverness on the east coast. I don't do much road riding at home but I think you'd have to be insane to ride main roads in Scotland. (We met a local mountain biker at dinner who agreed with this assessment.) This pic shows a good quality major road - so narrow that it's scary to pass an approaching truck in our little VW Golf. The highway has shoulders 10 cm wide (better than many roads) and consists pretty much exclusively of blind corners. Oh yeah, and the speed limit between towns ranges from 80-100 kph.



Drove along Loch Ness today. It's a beautiful lake but I'm not sure what all the fuss is about.



And then to Inverness. As Urthbuoy might say, I "pooches the nave" after dinner. Not that we went the wrong way but when I suggested the nice trail route along the River Ness and the Caledonian Canal, I failed to look at the scale of the town map. It was a lovely 6 km hike back to our B&B in increasingly dim light after taking only 10 minutes to get *to* the restaurant! Had banoffee pie for the first time.

Figured out why all the photos posted from my netbook looked like crap. If you've been holding your nose and cringing at them (as I have), they should look like real pictures now.
http://www.ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920...

Congrats to all our friends who raced in or worked at Wilderness Traverse over the weekend. 'Bent and I were lucky to find a B&B with wifi for the weekend so we were able to follow the race website live coverage, SPOT GPS tracking, Facebook and Twitter. Awesome - I can't remember a race since Primal Quest that was covered so well online. Special congrats to our friends on Team Untamed New England for winning overall and to Running Free for taking the silver. Can't wait to read the race reports!

'Bent's knee wasn't feeling like another steep climb so we headed to the north end of the Isle of Skye for a shorter, gentler hike. It still had 250 m of vertical so his knee probably got more of a workout than it needed.

Things are greener up here with lots and lots of sheep. Lambs are everywhere and very cute!



We hiked around the Quiraing, an area of weird rock formations and steep cliffs near the sea.



Because this was a shorter hike, I didn't take it as seriously as our mountain treks - and that's never a good idea. I didn't have my Garmin Forerunner or SPOT tracker; I didn't even have a map other than a cartoon drawing in the Lonely Planet guidebook. Most people stay low and just do an out-and-back to explore the rock formations but we'd been advised to climb up high and walk along the clifftops first, then descend and return along the tourist trail. The view was supposed to be spectacular - except that the fog started rolling in. Whenever we got to a place where there was supposed to be a wonderful view, we stopped and read the guidebook aloud so we would know what we were missing. "Fantastic view of the western isles!"



Eventually, it got difficult to see the edge of the cliff we were walking along. The trail became indistinct, confused with dozens of similar sheep trails. We found this cairn at the high point, as we were supposed to.



From there, we were supposed to hike a little while further to another cairn at a place where we could descend at a break in the cliffs. But we got pulled west on sheep trails in the fog and lost the edge of the cliff. At one point, I cheerfully announced that I'd spotted the cairn, "Strange - this one is made of white rock." As we approached, the "cairn" said "baa!", stood up and walked away. I'd been watching my compass in the absence of a map, plus I knew that the ocean and cliffs were to the east. So we headed due east in the fog and were lucky to hit our cairn exactly where the trail headed down below the cliffs. Yay, orienteering practice. (In case Mom is reading this, don't worry! It took about 5 minutes to get un-lost.)

As we descended, we got below the cloud and it started to burn off. Interesting area - very Lord of the Rings.







Off to see the Loch Ness monster tomorrow.

'Bent and I hiked and scrambled to the top of Bruath na Frithe in the Black Cuillin range on the Isle of Skye. The viewpoint at the top was described as one of the finest views on the island. In fact, it was one of the most amazing 360 degree views I've ever seen - dramatic mountains, streams, gorges and the sea, plus the island stretching out for miles to our north. (Yes, miles. Scottish distances and speeds are in miles even though most things are metric.) Weather on Skye is often vile but it was perfect today.

We've met so many friendly people in Scotland. Today we accidentally crashed a party on top of Bruath na Frithe but we were welcomed with open arms. A man named Jonah was climbing his final Munro (there are 283 peaks over 3,000' in the country!) About 25 of his friends and family hiked up to wait for him, then when he arrived at the summit, they cracked open champagne and Glenlivet to celebrate. Apparently, this is commonly done on a hiker's final Munro. He insisted on pouring champagne for us. Such an unexpected slice of life and so much fun!

We'd originally planned to go mountain biking at Nevis Range but it was a zoo there due to a World Cup downhill mountain bike event that starts tomorrow. That's OK - it was fun to just hang around for awhile. We explored the expo and watched riders practising runs. There are 350 racers from 25 countries and they are *all* cool. (At least, it sure looked that way!)





The concession stands sold the usual food we see at sports events at home: porridge, haggis (regular and vegan) and risotto. !!!



These were the only concession stands - no burgers, fries or sandwiches. We had a long chat with the young haggismobile owner, a retired MTB racer moving into ultrarunning. He says he's the only one around here who runs in Five Fingers and measures his running cadence, so he was interested to hear about Canadian trends.

Passed Eilean Donan Castle...



Then arrived on the lovely Isle of Skye. More hiking tomorrow! Sending good thoughts to all our friends at Wilderness Traverse this weekend - have fun and we'll be watching.

We've found wi-fi at the Grog & Gruel pub!

We took advantage of today's perfect weather forecast to plan a high ridge trek on Buachaille Etive Mor. This took us to the summits of a few more Munros (not that we're taking them too seriously!) in the big mountainous valley known as Glencoe, which is infamous as the place where the Campbells massacred the MacDonalds in 1692. (There were extenuating circumstances - honest!) The government ordered the Campbell regiment to do it because they had problems with highlanders who didn't support the King. Campbells have a bad name around here, so today I was Mrs. Ehrlich - which I never am! This "No Hawkers or Campbells" sign was in the lobby of the Clachaig Inn in Glencoe.



Yikes! Aside from that, it's a beautiful glen that has played a big part in Scottish mountaineering history.



Here's the start of our hike - up the steep gully to the ridge, then to the summit on the left.



Here's what it looked like when we reached the ridge at the top of the gully. Our car is waaaaay down there!



If we'd climbed Ben Nevis today, we would have had great views - oh well, the stormy weather on the summit was an authentic Scottish experience.



Here's 'Bent on the summit of that first Munro we saw from the bottom.



From that summit, I took a photo of the Rannoch Moor for Hammer. This is a *very* important blanket bog.



Here's looking south toward another summit we climbed on the ridge.



Here's looking north after we'd hiked on the ridge for a couple of hours. The summit on the far right is the first summit we climbed - the one on the left in the photo from the bottom.



More boggy ground for Hammer. He would have loved this.



Today was more difficult than going up Ben Nevis because the trails were more rugged and steep. Sometimes it was just a rock scramble and there were lots of ups and downs.



Lunch stop!

Munro bagging (climbing mountains over 3,000') is a favourite Scottish pastime. Today we hiked up the granddaddy of them all - Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Great Britain. Check out the route (click on the earth logo). It reminded us of Gros Morne in Newfoundland - open and rocky with a big rounded top. Height is 1344 m, which is low by Canadian standards but huge over here! At the summit, several hikers were taking photos of themselves on their cell phones and calling their spouses.

It was socked in at the top and turned quite nasty for about 15 minutes. In spite of all the warnings, I hadn't thought I would use my compass but I did take one bearing when the sideways rain was blowing hard and we couldn't see the next cairn 50 m away. (Didn't actually use it though.) Although lots of tourists do this hike, apparently it is possible to walk over the cornice, so they tell hikers the bearings and distances from the summit cairn to the trail. OK, Internet is disappearing - bye!







We passed about 200 people today but here's the one guy who passed us. He was wearing Salomon shorts so we didn't mind.









I had a wee glass of Ben Nevis Whiskey to celebrate.

Edinburgh to Fort William by way of Stirling, where we learned about 9 centuries of Scottish history!