It was supposed to be a quiet weekend in Inverness with my friend Mark, but he did say bring your running gear, there's this route across Scotland! So after a few beers on the Friday night it seemed like a good idea, so we spent Saturday getting some adequate clothing, rucksacks, maps etc together and then drove up to Ardgay on the East Coast, dropped my car there, then drove around to Ullapool for the night. We had the camping stuff in the car but with forecast of heavy rain we fancied a decent night's sleep before the off, so we crashed in a hotel after eating fish and chips. Up at 5am, breakfast of sorts, drove to the start at Inverlael. I had this mad idea about putting our hands into the sea at each side, so we went for a warm up jog down to the loch to do just that, then we set off, leaving in the end at about 6:45am. The first few miles were perfect for running - a gentle ascent for 4-5 miles before we started hitting cloud and scree slopes when the path ran out. From here over the top it was walking and scrambling only, in the crowd it was raining but nothing heavy at all, we had been in sunshine before the cloud! The views and the route up were fantastic, wading across streams, and I had a little site on my own island in the middle of a corrie. Once on the top Mark did the navigating (and a fine job he did to!) as visibility was low. Lots of peat bogs on the top and hard going, but we ran when we could. Going down the other side we tried some fell running but both twisted bits and decided not a good idea. I went for a quick skinny dip in one of the Lochs on the top which was great, and then we descended down the steep valley side to a Bothy at the bottom (a little shack to take a break in). We had some lunch as the rain really came down then back out again and we had to get across the river. It was fast flowing and well above the knee and as we went across it got quite hard, ok when both legs were on the floor, but not when you lifted one up to move. Intelligent Mark, though, suggested four points of contact, so we held hands and moved one at a time. Simple, but effective, we got across no problem. Running again now alongside the river, through a mixture of peat bogs, clumpy grass and paddy fields. Ok, they weren't really paddy fields but they were grass with 3-4 inches of water over them, so about the same odds. Now and again, though the peat bogs or paddy fields or normal fields suddenly cheated us and we would sink considerably. Both of us lost a leg in holes that went up to our thighs, and one of my peat bogs nearly had my shoes, well above the knee that one. Lots of tributaries for the river to cross, some you could jump, but most you had to wade, or my favoured approach - jump leaning forwards! We ran for about 4 miles before we picked up a track and perhaps another 8 miles of walk/run to get to a minor road. This then led us all the way to the East Coast of the country, finishing with a long period of running after already having done a marathon distance! Approx stats are 33 miles, the biggest ascent was 2750 feet, and it took us 10 hours, arriving approx 16:45. But we did it, we ran across Scotland!
Details are here (click on satellite once on there - it gives a better idea of the terrain);
Run across Scotland Garmin log (before battery died)
