Training Log Archive: jennycas

The day that didn't really exist...

Revised ferry/boat tally for the trip: 14
to/from Bornholm
Helsingor-Helsingborg return (car)
Rodby-Puttgarden (train)
Hamburg canals cruise
Hamburg port cruise
to/from Vaxholm (Stockholm)
return from WMOC sprint venue x 2
to Orkney & back
tiny car ferry @Corran

Oh, and I am tempted to write a treatise on the different types of toilet flush mechanisms and shower heads/taps which I have encountered over the past 8 weeks!

C • treatise 1

Event: SA Night Champs
 

My attempts to bank sleep this week in advance of 2 nights on a plane with potentially very little sleep haven't worked that well, but yesterday's anti-inflammatories hadn't worn off my knees yet and so I thought I'd go run up some hills, the same ones as yesterday, but by different roads thereby admiring more of the houses and gardens with their summer flowers (Oban reminds me a little of both Hobart and Wellington NZ).

Didn't have particularly far to be driven today so there was plenty of time for looking around seashore villages, ancient graveyards (nice spot for a picnic), standing stones and chambered cairns, plus sitting by the shores of Loch Lomond, but always in the back of my mind was "what if we hit a traffic jam on the way to Glasgow?" Which we did; it took 40 minutes to drive about 5 miles at one point, and all because of an innocent-looking roundabout!

Anyway, all good and all checked in now. Thus ends the longest holiday I've taken since the end of first year uni (I've just realised). Not sure how I feel about going back to work - it has become gradually more stressful over the past 18 months or so and I took a long time to unwind on this trip, plus there are more changes ahead, so I need to work out how to cope with them. But it will be lovely to see the furry ones (although maybe George will have shaved for the occasion) on Saturday!

C • attitude towards work 2

No peak-bagging today, but lots of waterfall-bagging, starting with a walk to the one near our hotel (a refreshing change from antler-decor: carpet, wallpaper and even quilts!) before breakfast. One last ferry for luck, a small car-barge across the inlet south of Fort William (making 11 ferries for the trip I think if you count Hamburg river cruises) and then a 4km walk in Glen Nevis, uphill through a rocky gorge and then when it opened out into a grassy meadow there was the water falling down the mountain. Getting up close required crossing the river on a wire rope bridge, but I wouldn't even have been agile enough to clamber up on to it.

Reached Oban, a pretty mid-sized (9000ish) harbour town with a distinct lack of beach, about 5pm and after putting the washing on went out for an exploring run. At least, that's what I had in mind - I must apologise to Blair for dragging him through mud and up unnecessary hills :) I'd spotted a lookout above town which I was keen to get to, but we started along the coastline to where a little ferry (max 12 pedestrians and 2 bikes) crossed to the island of Kerrera, which I'd have loved to explore on foot. Then I spotted a footpath which led up to the Pulpit Rock Road - eventually, after a couple km through farmland and it was impossible to keep feet dry. From Pulpit Hill lookout I spotted the fake Colosseum on the hill above the opposite side of town, so headed in that direction on the pretext of looking for a supermarket. Again, good views of the inlet and islands and the cruise ship at anchor in the harbour; I really enjoyed this run. Unfortunately, my penalty for procrastination was the loss of another sock, because by the time we got back to the hostel someone had removed 99% of our washing from the machine in order to put theirs on...

Ullapool is not a big town - maybe 2000 people and the main grid of streets is about 0.5km square. Somehow we managed a half-hour run by going out beyond the caravan path and along the riverside path (river certainly rushing) then back to the waterfront YHA (nice views across the loch/inlet) which we subsequently vacated in time to see the big ferry leaving for the Isle of Lewis. Knees seem rather unhappy this week.

Lots more driving today and I am not the best of passengers on winding roads but these were mostly slow enough for me, and not just because of the campervans. The mountain scenery was impressive and even though the road never achieved much elevation (therefore I'm not sure whether we can honestly be said to have been in the Highlands?) much of it was treeless heather, with rocks and sheep. The road would climb to a saddle or headland, drop to an inlet or loch, and repeat (probably all my photos of different places will look the same!). Also there were numerous waterfalls which we stopped at on our way to Kinlochleven (south of Fort William). The best of these was at Corrieshalloch Gorge - where I became familiar with the expression "a cloud of midges".

Today I would have been perfectly content to curl up under the covers with a book and expend absolutely no energy, because I didn't feel as though I had any to spare. But it was another beautiful sunny morning and I had the opportunity to be chauffered from John O'Groats to Ullapool by Blair - approx 170 miles, which somehow took all day. Along the way we saw:
peat sods which had been dug in squares out of the ground and stacked for drying, in a number of places;
lots of sheep, placidly contentedly lying by the side of the road chewing grass and ignoring oncoming cars;
many km of single lane road with passing places (I think this is a major/national highway) and many many campervans stopping in these places to take photos;
lots of long narrow lochs and inlets with rocky treeless hillsides and mountains rising behind them;
lots of rocky hillsides with lumps & bumps that looked like they would make a deceptively difficult orienteering map;
a seaside cave where the river makes a waterfall through a hole in the roof;
one truly beautiful white sand beach flanked by rocky headlands and where people were even sunbathing;
one serious downpour which would have washed the sunbathers away and which turned every hillside into a waterfall;
and, as we arrived into Ullapool, one largish cruise ship in the harbour and 4 gum trees by the roadside. The last was the greatest surprise; I haven't seen a single eucalypt in the past 7 weeks!

C • are you sure? 5

Not sure if I'm yet ready to patent using the application of toothpaste as a tick-removal method, but at least it does work :)

We drove to John O'Groats last night in the pouring rain and stayed/dined at the pub, there not being a plethora of other options.This morning dawned bright & clear and perfect for a scenic run out to Duncansby Head lighthouse and some coastal rock stacks/a nice little beach (on opposite sides of the headland) 2 miles out of town - although my legs stubbornly refused to function on any hills.

Anyway, the real reason for being in this part of the world was in order to do a day trip to Orkney, and the reason I wanted to go to Orkney was to see Skara Brae, a Stone Age village which was buried under sand approx 2500 years BC and uncovered due to a storm in 1850. As a child I read The Boy with the Bronze Axe and was always fascinated by the thought of Skara Brae and so getting to see for myself the layout of the round houses, where all the furniture was made of stone, the standing stones at the Ring of Brodgar and the burial mounds, was almost too good to be true (if a little smaller than I had expected).

Ferry trip across to Mainland (largest island in the Orkney group) was much smoother than it often can be, and bus tour around the island (no trees, but much greener and more pastoral than I had expected, with lots of cows & sheep) quite interesting. Fish & chips eaten for dinner while sitting at the lighthouse back on the other mainland weren't too bad either.

And, linguistics lesson for the day which I found more interesting than my travel companion did: Blair means a plain, field or battlefield; (also, for Vanessa: ness means headland, cape or promontory). We all know by now that moss means marsh or bog - and in Swedish it's mosse. I'm quite interested by the similarities between Nordic languages and Scots.

P.S. I'm almost sure that from the ferry I saw a puffin diving for its fish dinner! It was definitely a bird with a red beak...

Feeling a little more sprightly today although the nearly-3km with nearly-200m climb, to the start, soon took care of that. Today we were running on the WOC long map from yesterday, on the north slopes of the valley - which were generally more open and less soggy than the previous day, on the south side of the valley (I have noticed here that north-facing slopes are always much wetter) and the contours reminded me a little of Sweden, as did the ground being soft & mossy underfoot, so I was happier. Plus it was possible to pick a route and execute it without getting pushed around by the vegetation or by paths which other people had made (I started comparatively early today). Should have stayed low on 1, because along the hillside was not fast. Then there was a big grunt up to 2, which I figured everyone else was walking anyway. Through this and the next few controls I was seeing a possibly M55, who I didn't totally lose sight of until no.8, so that kept me motivated. Only real error was on 11 where I crossed the hillside too high and came into the gully way above the control, partly because I didn't recognise a vegetation boundary between 2 different types of pine tree! Last few controls were in the open area along the river, with lots of little lumps & bumps, and I was feeling strong through this, even overtook someone in the finish chute. 18th today which was nice after 29th yesterday.

Now, some thoughts on the Scottish 6-Days. I hadn't realised this is such a big event - even in a usual year, about 3000 people and with WOC & associated spectators they nearly doubled this. No wonder parking was such a nightmare, especially as this has apparently been a rather wet summer. In general the races were really well organised but I wonder what it is that makes people say "gee, I want to go and get pushed around by Scottish hillsides 6 days in a row" and I still don't think it's ok to have no drinking water whatsoever at any events.

And now I've watched a WOC - box ticked. Again, very well organised and the home crowd's excitement was a nice touch which made it better than watching online from the other side of the world, as did getting to run in some of the same forests (definitely my pick was the relay terrain at Darnaway, just wish I'd been able to run a bit faster myself through the beautiful beech basins). Still sad to have missed watching the sprint relay, but really can't complain since on a personal level my favourite race of this trip was the WMOC final :)

S6D - Day 6 Glen Affric - C30 - Splits