100 x 3 challenge

 

When it wasn't clear when it would be ok to not stay local, I set myself a challenge for 2021 to climb each of the three nearest summits to my house 100 times in the calendar year. These are: Dumbreck (508m), Lecket Hill (547m), and Cort-ma Law (531m). I'm sure it will be very dreich on the majority of occasions but I'm trying to populate this page with pictures of when the fells are looking at their best.

Winter means... Campsie sunrises!

Sillouette or Cort-ma Law from Dumbreck 21.11.2021

Sun rising over the Southern Uplands 21.11.2021

Above Birkenburn reservoir 13.11.2021

28.09.2021 Secret Campsies

For most visitors, a trip to the Campsie Fells means a walk up one of the well-trodden paths of Dumgoyne, Cort-ma Law or Meikle Bin. I've spent much of the last 8 years running amongst these fells. There are so many hidden features, many of which are not marked on the maps. It is extremely unusual to ever see anyone in these places, the best of which are guarded by miles of tussocks, ferns, bracken, or boggy ground. I've discovered idyllic swim pools, steep gorges, and hidden raised valleys. In such places I regularly meet red kite, golden plover, curlew,  and short-eared owls. There remain many corners of this hillscape for me to explore. This is extraordinary when you consider this is a 100 square mile area barely 10 miles north of the largest city in Scotland. When rain has been heavy I like to visit the falls, of which there are so many to chose. Here, at the end of September I ran off Lecket Hill southwest into the Alnwick Burn, to some falls not marked on the Ordnance Survey maps.

 15.06.2021 All the Campsies?

Over the last few years I've had various conversations among friends and locals about the possibility of creating run that connected up all the summits in the Campsie Fells. I was keen for a route that used objective criteria to define which summits to include. I settled on using the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 (Explorer) and 1:50,000 (Landranger) maps to identify every summit higher than 300m that had both a spot height and a name (on either map, including some that had a spot height on one map and a name on the other). The resulting list of 35 peaks could be connected coherently in a single 68km run which I did on Tuesday June 15th. The only slighly unnatural summits included were Drumbouy and Cock Hill which are in the middle of the forestry to the south east of Carron Valley reservoir. According to the maps, the eastern few summits on this route such as Laird's Hill, Garrel Hill and Tomtain, are technically "Kilsyth Hills" (not Campsies), but the distinction between these two ranges is not clear. I included everything to the north of the A803/A891 and the south of the B818, and everything to the west of the Tak ma Doon road and to the east of the A81. It felt fitting that the first hills on this circuit were Crichton's Cairn/Cort-ma Law and the last one was Dumbreck, and that this run marked me reaching the half way point of my 3 x 100 challenge.

Off the "Clachachter Stone" on the descent of Dumbreck (10.04.2021)

Sun rising from the top of Holehead at 0630 (09.04.2021)

Predawn light at 0600 from the sumit of Lecket Hill, with Meikle Bin sillouette (09.04.2021)

On the morning of Tuesday March 16th I did a "Grand Campsie Round", connecting the range's five highest trig points in a single 38km run. 

Sun pushing through the clouds over Dumbreck trig (16.03)

Earl's Seat trig (16.03)

Looking back to the Little Corrie (16.03)

Meikle Bin trig (16.03)

Cort-ma Law trig (16.03)

Holehead trig (16.03)

Finglen crossing (12.02)

Dumbreck summit fence (12.02)

Lonely Hawthorn on the way up Dumbreck (12.02)

Beautiful view of Cort-ma Law from Dumbreck (12.02)

Icicles on the way off Lecket Hill (11.02)

West highlands from Lecket Hill (11.02)

Ben Lomond form Lecket Hill (11.02)

Campsie snow dessert (11.02)

Cort-ma Law summit (11.02)

Fence completely submerged beneath the snow on Cort-ma Law (11.02)

Descending Dumbreck in the dawn light (08.02)

The most famous "Whangie" near Glasgow is the schism in the rocks to the West of Auchineden Hill in the Kilpatricks, but the Campsies have their own "Wangie", just above Ballagan near Strathblane. The word is thought to derive from Old Scots for "slice." (26.01)

Fence-line descent to Alnwick burn after Lecket Hill, as per the Cort-ma Law race route, 24.01

View to Meikle Bin from Lecket Hill 24.01

Red light appearing as I ascended Dumbreck for the second time on 17.01...

Then the sun rose directly behind Tinto Hill on the descent (17.01)

Silhouette of Meikle Bin against the pre-dawn light, from Dumbreck summit 13.01

Setting off up Dumbreck with Jethro Lennox by moonlight on New Year's Day

Jethro pushing on through snowdrifts on Dumbreck summit 01.01

Me heading back to Dumbreck 01.01

Cort-ma Law summit sunset 06.01

Lecket Hill sunset 06.01

View to the West Highlands from Lecket Hill 08.01

A story about Ben Buie

Map of Mull

Lochbuie from Glenbyre

Lochbuie, at the southern end of Mull, is a Southwest facing sea loch which points straight past Colonsay and Northern Ireland. Prevailing South-westerly winds bring huge interrupted Atlantic waves to the heart of the bay, which is a haven for wildlife, including Sea Eagles, Golden Eagles, and Otters. This is the ancient seat of the Clan MacLaine. They accumulated spiralling debt and in 1922 sold the entire estate and moved to South Africa. Past clan members are buried in a mausoleum at Laggan Sands about which graze Highland cattle, Swaledale sheep and Fallow deer. Towering above the settlement is Ben Buie, a 717m mountain the summit of which, on clear days, offers spectacular views across the West Highlands, the Paps of Jura, and the Skye Cuillin.

Lochbuie is home to the only Stone Cicle on Mull

Ben Buie

I have an unusual relationship with Ben Buie. I first ran up this mountain in October 2005. I was a 4^th year medical student on a general surgery placement in Oban at the time. One Saturday morning I’d taken the boat over to Mull to meet up with some local hill runners. We’d left a car near the high point of the road between Loch Spelve and Loch Scridain and taken the very boggy path past Loch Airde Glais to the southern coast of Mull. We then turned back inland and struck up towards the summit of Ben Buie itself. We’d reached the summit and were making our way along the rocky ridge back towards the car when I suddenly got the strange feeling of that something was very much not right inside my head. There was no pain, but my eyes could not focus. I think remember wondering if I was having a stroke. I shouted help. And then I remember nothing more.

.

2 minutes into the climb and the Paps of Jura appear

Half way up and Ben More appears

When I regained consciousness, I had body under each shoulder and with lots of support I was slowly staggering down the grassy mountainside. By now we were just a few hundred meters from the car, probably 2 km north of where I had collapsed. John Coyle, a high school teacher in Tobermory had seen children having epileptic seizures in the past, and he was sure this was what had happened to me. At the moment I lost consciousness my entire body had gone stiff, I fell to the ground, and was shaking violently for 2-3 minutes. I was covered in scratches from the rocks and I had bitten my tongue. Over the next few weeks I had a few tests (blood tests, MRI brain scan, EEG brainwave test) to see if there as any explanation as to why this happened. A neurologist wondered if it had been triggered by an abrupt change in my heart rhythm so I wore and ECG monitor for 7 days. According to the cardiologist who reported it this did not show anything to worry about, though in deep sleep my heart rate occasionally dropped to 17 beats per minute!

The West Highlands from Ben Buie Summit

Despite being a medic – and having a good understanding of the biological basis of what happened to me – over the following months I still felt a peculiar sense of shame that I should have had an epileptic seizure. In many societies today, epilepsy is associated with witchcraft, evil forces, and demonic possession, as it was the world over in times gone by. Yet even here and now epilepsy-related stigma persists.  This is likely associated with the total loss of control the sufferer experiences during a seizure, and the lack of understanding of its biological causes. Perhaps my own experience of this was part of what lead me to devote my career to understanding the causes of epilepsy better.

Since 2005 I have not had another seizure, and until this week I had not been back over Ben Buie. Friday January 26^th was a glorious winters day, and I took the opportunity to revisit the summit of this mountain and it was well worth it

Summit Panorama

Scottish Islands Peaks Race (SIPR) 2016

Humans, and especially athletes, derive a lot of motivation through making sense of the story of their own lives. After my disappointment at the Highland Fling (legs gave in after 30 miles) I badly needed to regain the narrative. Thankfully, on cue, the Scottish Islands Peaks Race (SIPR) did just that for me. Having now done this race 10 times (starting at the age of 19) the SIPR is definitely part of my story.

"Obedient" - our home for the weekend

Sailors tell me that there is no sailing race like it. There is certainly no running race like it. The SIPR is a unique blend of disciplines whose value comes to so much more than the sum of the two parts. It can be a cruel race too. Imagine running your guts out on Mull to get a half hour lead, only to find yourself then caught in a "tidal trap" opposite the Corryvreckan, allowing a whole load of other teams to efforlessly catch up with you (yes, this happened to us this year). 

Toward the end of the 4.5 mile "Prologue" outside Oban

We were fastest runner on the short run round Oban, so left Oban harbour with the whole fleet of 40 boats behind us

As recounted in a previous blog, I came to this event first by happy (and slightly daunting) coincidence when I was drafted in as a last-minute replacement in 2003. The 2016 race became my 7^th completion of the race (from 10 starts). The team with whom I did my first 10 SIPRs decided to stop doing the event after the 2012 race, and I missed the event from 2013-15. This year, I was with a new team (skipper Iain Baird with sailors Gordon Baird and Ben Shelley), on a new boat (Obedient), with a new running partner (Es Tresidder). The race rules are slightly complex, and can be read about elsewhere. This year’s event contained a good measure all the aspects that make the race so special. I will summarise these as unpredictability, wilderness, and challenge.

Unpredictability:

Something that makes the race so exciting for runners is having very little idea when you will be landed on an Island and required to run. This is clearly something we are not really used to with the well-defined start times of most running races. In 2010 we landed on Jura at 11pm and ran the entire course in the dark (on a dry night the Paps are fantastic in the dark by the way because as you run down the thick scree the rocks collide into each other and generate sparks). On other years I’ve been woken from sleep in the cabin by sailors and advised that we are 30 minutes away from landing on Arran: then suddenly the wind drops and 3 hours later we are still no closer to the pier.

This year the winds were light and sailing times relatively long. Somehow we landed on all islands in daylight and didn’t require our head torches once. On the other hand there were more unexpected sources of unpredictability in this year’s race. At 400m altitude, halfway up Ben More on Mull. Es and I ran straight into a “cast sheep” (a sheep that has fallen onto her back and can’t get back onto her feet). We decided to haul her back onto her feet again (though she was clearly severely weakened by the experience). This is the first time I’ve ever up-righted a sheep in the middle of a hill race!

Wilderness:

The Islands of the West Coast of Scotland represent a true wilderness, and the SIPR is an amazing way to experience this. On this year’s race we met a short-eared owl from extremely close range when we nearly ran into her nest in the early evening on Mull, a huge pod of porpoises between the Mull of Kintyre and Arran, and seals in the Sound of Jura. In past races we’ve seen Sea Eagles on Northern Jura.

Calm seas on Sunday morning. Very pleasant but not getting us anywhere fast!

Challenge:

The SIPR involves running 96km over a long-weekend. Clearly the challenge of this is something that I find very attractive. I’ve also created an additional challenge for myself by targeting the race's running records. In 2012 together with Robbie Simpson I broke the then 22-year-old record for the fastest total running time for the runs on Mull, Jura, and Arran (reducing the “King of the Bens” record from 9 hours 34 minutes to 9 hours 17 minutes).  That year we also broke the record for the leg on Mull (from 3 hours 25 minutes to 3 hours 12 minutes) but we were slower than the record times on Jura (3 hours 4 minutes held by Rigby/Ferguson) and on Arran (2 hours 54 minutes held by Maitland/Farningham). Robbie and I were flying that year, so this year I had no ambitions to target more records. It therefore came as a bit of a surprise to me when we started running on Arran. Both Es and I were moving fast! We got to the summit of Goat Fell in 1 hour 32 minutes, then back to the bottom in under 2 hours. It had taken us 43 minutes on the way out to get from the run start in Lamlash to the foot of Goat Fell just outside Brodick. Now we had 54 minutes to get back in record time. As we hurtled through the streets of Brodick a lady said to us “Good luck!” I turned to Es and said “It’s not going to take luck. It’s going to take a lot of pain.” We made it back to the pier in Lamlash in 2 hours 44 minutes 39 seconds (almost 10 minutes faster than the record).

Looking back to Gaotfell on leaving Lamlash

We couldn’t have done any of this without the amazing support of the sailing crew: Gordon, Iain, and Ben. They make a fantastic team and they worked incredibly hard all through Friday and Saturday nights to get the boat (and us) round the course in a great time, in conditions not suited to catamarans. As a team we finished 3^rd overall, and first in Class 1 (multihull boats), beaten only by North Star (Class 2) and Clockwork (Call Rounders).