Ben Nevis

A bit damp when we arrived at Glen Nevis campsite on Friday night. Put up the trusty Vango on the least squelchy piece of ground we could find and set off to Morrisons for provisions. Emerged £50 lighter with a bag full of cereal, milk, rolls, pasta, cheese and beer.

Lashed all night. Up at nine and after a big breakfast went to registration,bought a hat to keep the rain off. Back to the tent for more food, pasta and rolls and the occaisonal look outside to check how low the clouds were.

Down to Claggan Park for the race, lots of people hiding in the changing rooms to the last possible moment. The MC kept advising full body cover required, wind speed 20 mph on top, wind chill of -3 and visibility down to 50 feet. Didn't sound too bad compared to the usual Sunday mornings in Arrochar or Luss.

Over 470 runners set off for a lap round the field and onto the road, reached Achintee in 9 minutes. Felt fine on the tourist track going along Melantee, the short cuts a tad muddy. Going round into the Red Burn gulley the windy corner was windy. The climb up to cross the Red Burn and the mud kicked in.

Reached the Red Burn in about 55 mins, just happy to be there.

From the Red Burn it gets steeper, initially on narrow muddy tracks then through boulders, the odd landslide to cope with due to the volume of water. Some of the moving rocks mansized, def not to be sneezed at.

At the top of the RB the gradient eases and found I could run again, obviously not trying hard enough. Dodging the runners coming down and reached the top in 105 mins.

Turned for home, gloves on, pushing hard as the gradient increased flew past quite a few, felt great. Back down beside the RB and big gradients, boulders and a scree slurry flowing underfoot, eased back and had to time the overtaking moves to avoid a few crashes.

Seemed like no time and I arrived back at half way point and the unfavourite Grassy Bank, 800 feet of slippy slidey grassy muck, usual torrid time, overtaken by ladies, good grief, must do better. A few bumslides, a few crab crawls then slip bang into the RB and it was over.

All that was left was an easy run back along Melantee then the last mile or so of lovely road and a celbratory run round the Claggan pitch. Tried a couple of short cuts along Melantee, the first a small cliff, ouch ouch cramp, lost some time, great short cut. The second a mud chute, could hardly run for laughing, maybe gained 5 yards.

Steady run down to Achintee for the wibbly wobbly leg run on the tarmac to Claggan. Felt fine, so more effort required, a day to enjoy rather than flat out kamikaze. Finished in 2:42 and 352nd place out of 464 finishers.