EPIC!!!

After Thursday's run I was absolutely shattered. My legs were absolutely minced which I can only account to the very rough ground we covered. With the forecast indicating light winds myself and Emily decided to go kayaking over on Moidart. After 2 days kayaking and an overnight camp at which we cooked everything over an open-fire, I felt the need to grab in a run to make sure I didn't miss my weekly milage (hourage really).

We got back to Inverness relatively late so it wasn't until 17.30 until I left the house aiming to cover about 20km. The initial 10km was on track and the first trig-point at 200m went to plan. As I headed over the first open moorland section the light was begining to fade. Suddenly on my right I spotted 2 large bulls and I used all available cover to stay out of their way. A huge band of gorse pushed me off my bearing too far North but at least that way I got to see a large chambered cairn. I hit a road and ran down for a couple of hundred meters. By the time I reached the second trig point it was well and truely dark and I got my head torch on.

I now had a 4km cross country stretch to reach the General Wade road which I could follow easily back to town. This leg started badly. I gave up on my orginal route after I disappeared, several times, over my knees in bog. A huge patch of gorse cancelled out my cross-country attempt to reach the row of pylons which was to mark the line of my alternative route. So back to the road, a quick jog, a jump over the fence and off along the side of the pylons. I have never been the keen on the dark and trapsing through the dark, stumbling in amongst tussocks and puddles with the electricty wires crackling ominously really spooked me. I then had a horrid thought that some demented farmer might think I was out poaching and would take a pot-shot at me. Either that or some axe murderer might be lucking on a dark, wet night to spring upon some unsuspecting hill runner. I quickly switched off my head torch and after my eyes got used to the dark it was easy enough to follow my route. The gorse had been cleared from beneath the pylons and I even managed to up the pace. Slowly the dark edge of the forest came into view,but I was rapidly discovering that distance are much harder to judge in the dark. I thought I was nearly there but suddenly all routes forward ended in a huge bog, fringed by 10ft gorse either side. I tried to skirt the worst but kept on getting pushed further and further away from my bearing. Attempts at forcing my way through were quickly aborted. Every path I followed ended in gorse dead ends and the only sounds I could hear was my splashing through puddles and startled quacks of ducks startled by some idiot waking them up in the middle of the night. I began to panic and tried to orientate myself. I really couldn't, morally at least, face the return journey to the road I had come from. And just at the point of dispair my head torch, now firmly switched on, illuminated a well worn animal track heading in rough the right direction. I followed this to a burn marked on the map and I took a bearing across more open-ground. My worry subsided and I jogged through fields past a barn, over a fence. My heart leapt as I caught a glimpse of two large eyes, obviously belonging to some huge beast. I quickly hurdled a fence which was about knee height and hoped the thing wasn't interested in me. The thunder of hooves on my right indicated that he, for it definetly was a him, was interested and had several mates with him. I know that to run is probably the worse things to do in that situation but run I did Like a the proverbial out of hell. A full-on 400m sprint until I reached General Wades. I jogged down relieved, wet through and mentally exhausted and Emily came in the car and saved me the last 3km through the town.

Distance: 26km Time: 3.5h