Blue skies and cool breeze on the Friday. Set up camp in front of the hotel and avoided beer.
Dinner then an early night, the weather forecast for race day worsening. Woke to a grey day, as race start approached the rain came on and the last two hills disappeared into the mist.
Through kit check and registration by the 10:15 muster and we were off at 10:30. The first three hills (Pips) and checkpoints are over heathery moorland, a bit boggy at first, drying out as height is gained, each summit area bouldery, a flavour of the bigger Paps to come. No navigation issues with the first checkpoint, we are all pretty much in a line,
Easy running between CP1 and 2
Looming out the mist between CP1 and 2
1st to 2nd ok if you remember where to turn, we came up pretty good, about 30 yards left of the ideal line.
Approaching CP2
The middle section of 2nd to 3rd seemed more vague than I remembered but no problem reaching the CP,
CP2 to CP3
Down into Gleanne Astaile before the first Pap, a few boggy tussocky patches but still running easy.
Drop into Gleann Astaile
The first Pap, up and across and up and across a few times picking the grassiest way up the scree covered flanks, lost a few places on the last up before the rocky summit dome.
Pap 1 summit
Across the top and down the ridge, steep gravel at first then scree which has drifted towards the bottom over the years. Short run across the coll, stopped to empty the gravel out my shoes before the climb up Pap #2, climbed well until I reached the ridge where cramp decided to visit quads and calves, drank some of the electrolyte fluids I was carrying which took a few minutes to kick in.
The road along Pap 2 summit ridge
Descending off Pap 2 in the mist
Not much visibility on the run down to the next coll, slightly off line concentrating on keeping my still stiff legs moving as easily as I could, got back on line on the run across to Pap #3. I had started with my jacket on and stopped here to put bottoms on. Climbing ok until cramp kicked in again, more electrolytes, they took a few minutes longer to work this time.
Pap 3 Summit
Along the bouldery top past the CP turned for the descent, thought about a new line to try to pick up my usual second scree chute a bit higher up and save the Talus traverse. Decided against it and went with the usual twisting gritty path that gradually becomes a nice scree chute, had to dodge one large spinning medicine ball sized boulder thankful the runner behind had listened to the race brief instructions on warnings.
Overtaking down the scree chute
Having a wee seat on the way down the scree chute
Talus traverse
Reached the end of the first scree chute and traversed across the Talus to the next one, followed it down and eventually picked up the traversing path towards the last hill Corra Bheinn. Across the lochan covered coll to start the short steep climb, cramp immediately brought me to a halt, more electrolytes helped at first but I didn't take enough as I was trying to keep some for the top and Three Arch Bridge, stopped again for some more.
The last climb, Corra Bheinn
Soon moving up more easily again, catching a couple of the places I had lost and I still had some electrolyte left for 3AB. Marshalls were hiding behind the summit out of the wind, had to work out a slightly different line to pick up the rough descent path. Passed a few coming up here who had taken a wrong turn off the third Pap, ouch, that would have hurt.
Half an hour of grassy, boggy descent to 3AB
Kept as high a pace as I could down towards 3AB, across the stream and hit some deep bogs, cramp came screaming back and the last of the electrolyte came to the rescue, a few minutes and I was at the road, waterproof bottoms off and set off on a steady 3 mile run to the finish in just over 6 1/4 hours.
Can I go round again?
This was 21 seconds quicker than my first Jura in 2010 run in similarly misty conditions.
I carried my GoPro camera in a chest harness and set it to take a picture every minute, I saved this in youtube as a time lapse video, just over 7 minutes long, link.
