Glencoe - Allt na Muidhe watershed

With a fine mid week forecast and a left-over bank holiday a mid-week bagging trip seemed a good idea. At the north end of Glencoe is the hidden Munro of Sgor na h'Ulaidh. Not content with such a small bag we decided to make a round of the watershed, so 2 Corbetts of Beinn Maol Chaluim and Meall Lighiche together with the Graham of Meall Mor were added to the route.

A small parking space off the A82 near Achnacon just opposite a stile made an ideal start point for the run up Fionn Ghleann to the first hill. It was surprisingly chilly and the first run for a while where I was glad of hat and gloves. We picked up sheep trods high up on the sides of the glen and made rapid progress to the summit. From Beinn Maol Chalium we backtracked and then traversed back south on a fantastic trod to the bealach beneath Creag Dubh. A couple of steeper rock bands interspersed with grass on a ridge led first to the Munro Top and finally to the Munro of Sgor na h'Ulaidh. The route coming off, following the fence in a north-westerly direction, had a sting in the tail when a wet, slabby area required some delicate scrambling before we got back to less steep ground again. Down in the bealach we came across an old gate leading from nowhere to nowhere. Along much of the route we followed old fence lines, marked now with the bare iron stanchions, the wire having long since rusted away. The effort and cost of erecting such a fence must have been huge.

The rest of the route up and over the broad summits of Meall Lighiche and Meall Mor was nicely runnable and even the final drop straight back down to the A82 was pleasant. Although only 10 miles, much of the ground was rough and steep almost completely lacking in paths with fantastic views both of Glencoe and the surrounding hills.

As always the weather was not to last and a very mixed day weather-wise on Sunday lead to the last of my Munros on Skye (Sgurr Dubh Mor and Sgurr nan Eag) bagged. The scrambling on the ridge was easier than anticipated and this time round we made it into the Corrie with ease. Just follow the highest path (not well-cairned despite what the SMC book says) on your left and scramble up left of the left-most of the three streams. Easy really ; o) Only 14 Munros left for my boss who was really happy to have finally got the ridged completed. Rum looked impressive under the leaden skies and despite the heavy showers it was another long, enjoyable day out.

Trying to get fit again

It seems ages since I last posted and it is probably because the weather has been so bad. There really isn't much to write about when all one has done is another run in the wind and rain. And the photos don't exactly inspire either! Saying that I have finally been getting the motivation to get going and start beasting myself again. No more long runs needed now so I have been concentrating on doing relatively fast paced efforts of up the 3hs maximum. As a result I have rediscovered muscles I had forgotten about and I am getting used to the effort required to run up hills properly.

Even with the weather I have had some fantastic runs all over the place including a trip to the Breacons in Wales and a chance encounter with the famously smelly feral goats of White Comb in the Borders.

The race I was training for, the Lake District Mountain Trial, was cancelled due to bad weather, but it looks like I might be racing the OMM Elite instead. Last year I didn't train at a hard enough pace and I paid for it, so this year I am going to keep the runs short, but go at them hard. I know I can plod for hours at a time so with a bit more strength and speed we might do a bit better than the 25th-ish place last year. My partner has learnt to navigate too so that should be a bonus. The only problem is that it is in the Lakes and apart from my Bob runs and the odd uni climbing trip I don't know the area at all well.

So my schedule at the moment is Monday and Fridays swimming or core work, Tuesday undulating trail aiming to do 10kmish in under 1hr, Wednesday steady bike with hills 1-1.5hs, Thursday hard intervals or hills. Weekends are for hill runs over round ground keeping them to a max of 3hs and trying quite hard.