Ben Lomond

Saturday morning turned out a bit damp but not as windy as forecast and reasonably warm. We set off for a run up the Ben. The aim was to run as much as possible instead of accepting the usual jog walk. With this in mind we took the lower slopes nice n steady and managed to run, apart from some of the rocky sections to what is now the third gate. A bit steeper here and walked the first 1/3 or so then ran the middle section before using the excuse of too many rocks to run safely. Began to run again as the path started to level off and had a good run along the plateau picking up pace as the legs recovered. Towards the end of the plateau the path switches left and right and gets a bit lumpy, hard work but kept running. Soon we were on to the steep climb to the summit ridge, walked up the initial steps then managed to get the legs into run mode and pushed hard up and round the corner onto the ridge, gasped my way along the ridge through the rocky outcrops and a final push up to the trig point. Reached the top in 72 mins so only a few minutes slower than race pace. Held onto the trig point for a few minutes until the HR dropped and after a chat with a couple of American walkers set off down the Ptarmigan ridge. The first half is steep and tricky down a rocky path through a series of steep drops, the softer grass and moss to the side too slippy to run down today. Eventually came out the cloud at about 1500' and Loch Lomond came into view. Took our time on the way down and finished in about 2 hours 20.