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Ben Nevis race report
As Britain's highest mountain, Ben Nevis instantly qualifies as one of the stupidest places to run a race. You start no more than 10m above sea level and have to climb over 1,300m to the top. Naturally, people have been racing up and down it's slopes for years and was my year to add my name to the list of fools who have tortured themselves on its slopes.
We were lucky with the weather which was warm but not hot, the sky overcast. I felt rather overdressed with my camelbak/rucksack but I reckoned given how long I anticipated being out there, I needed it. Many runners carried no drinks at all, relying on the mountain streams for water. Unusually for a hill race, there was a kit inspection pre-race and I was glad that I had my quota of overtrousers, jacket, hat, gloves and whistle.
The race starts with a lap of a local football field before heading out on to the road up Glen Nevis for about a mile. The road then finishes and you're heading up the slopes for real. The early stretches are relatively runable but before long, you're reduced to a forced march up ever steepening paths with the occasional "off piste" foray through the undergrowth.
Rather distressingly (but not surprisingly given my present fitness) despite marching as fast as the next man/woman (or so it felt at least), I was being passed by nearly every Tom, Dick and Harry. I've never seen the backs of so many grey bearded old men! Things only got worse when Mr. Ironing Board passed me. Yep, that's right, there was a member of the extreme ironing brigade with a full sized ironing board (and iron) running up Ben Nevis. Oh the shame!
All I could do was to keep putting one foot in front of the other over and over and over again, all the while resisting the almost overwhelming urge to stop and take a breather (like an alcoholic trying to resist a glistening pint of beer placed right in front of him). I don't suppose it would have made any difference to my time but my pride demanded that I get to the top with out stopping.
I probably lost some time on the way up by diverging from the main stream of runners and taking the tourist path up which although longer, at least had some short runable sections. It also meant that I wasn't being visibly passed by any runners which made a nice change. ;-)
After what felt like forever I finally crested the top of the hill to make my way to the shelter where we handed in numbered tags. It had taken me 1:45 to get to the top, 15 minutes inside the cut off but far closer to any cut off than I've ever been before! My legs were all over the place and even though the top is relatively level, the rocks made running hard. The views looking back towards Fort William and south towards Lundavra and the Mamores were stunning but sadly there was too little time to admire the views. As ever, whilst the ascent was killing, the descent was almost as bad. The desire to get down quickly had to be balanced with the desire to get down physically intact. As walkers teetered down with the security of walking poles we streamed past looking like a huge group of accidents
waiting to happen.
After much slipping and sliding but no actual falls (I clearly wasn't trying hard enough) it was down to some runable sections again and the running was
almost a blessed relief. Any hopes of a 2:30-2:45 time were out the window but sub 3 was still doable and after a painful lap of the football field again, I finished amongst the tail-enders in 2:55.
Despite my time, I'm so glad I did it. You can only run as fast as your fitness allows and I know my fitness is pretty cr*p at the moment. The Ben Nevis race has a real sense of occasion about it. I probably enjoyed the scenery rather more than the leaders too. ;-) I've a sneaking feeling I'll be back.
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