Nevis Trail so-called Half Marathon

Only now, 2 days after the event have I regained my composure sufficiently to write a race report having been financially and mentally abused by the organisers of the above event! Quite a long report but I have to get this out my system!

Somehow I was convinced that this event (actual profile on the left) would be a good training race for the forthcoming Day in the Lakes Half Ironman Triathlon relay in 5 or 6 weeks for which I am again doing the run leg, a half marathon fell race with some thousand feet or so of ascent. Having been drained by a virus all week, I left it until after a test run on Saturday afternoon to pay my £20 on-line entry fee. On Sunday morning I set off from Callander towards Fort William. By Crianlarich the rain was torrential and the winds gale force. By Tyndrum I had decided I was going to turn around and go home. On pulling into the Green Welly Stop to turn, I spotted Genevieve and Colin's car parked there so went in to tell them of my decision. Typically, I was easily convinced by the assembled ATHelite team to carry on up anyway for a meal. As I returned to my car, there was a Tourettes Scotland charity van parked up nearby. Little did I know that a few hours later I would be taking the entrance exam for this charity! The trip up north was uneventful (unless you were driving a motor home or towing a trailer, in which case you were likely to be visiting the Caravan Club's latest ad-hoc site, lying on your side or roof on Rannoch Moor).

First effort of the day was getting the car door open in the Nevis Range car park where the conditions were mid-Atlantic in severity. As I had paid my money, I thought I might as well collect my number and any other goodies going and before I knew it, I had it pinned to my vest and there's no way back after that! A brief warm-up completely soaked me and proved that it was only possible to run in one direction; with the wind. The pre-race briefing was held in the cafe and I was surprised to hear the organiser say that there were no marshalls and we just had to follow arrows on the forest roads. Having plenty of experience of running in forests at home, I know how complicated these networks of forest roads can be, so this did not fill me with confidence (remember, I have been lost on a 5k parkrun before in the middle of a city!).

A few minutes later the 60 or 70 competitors huddled in the car park whilst the organiser tried to shout instructions over the wind and rain. Its never a good sign when steel, temporary fencing is blowing across the car park before a race. Then we were off, heading down the access road to the car park, expecting a turn-off into the forest on the left at some stage. I went with the first two at 5:30 mile pace into the wind and we seemed to break away from the field almost immediately. However, I wasn't seeing any roads or tracks off to the left and about a mile later we hit the A82 main road to Fort William/Inverness. I was about 20 m back from the two leaders at this stage who seemed to know what they were doing but as buses, cars and trucks squeezed past I knew this couldn't be right. After another mile I could see the front two exchanging comments and I accelerated to quickly close the gap and voice my concerns. A couple of cyclists passed us and they confirmed that there were "hundreds" of runners behind us so it seemed like the whole field had followed us. One of the guys was local and knew that the route should have passed through the North Face car park and we could get back to that by turning left at Torllundy, just before Fort William. So after about 3 miles on the road in this so-called trail race, we turned in at Torllundy and after another half mile saw an arrow (which we should have approached from the opposite  direction). Then, it was every man for himself again.

One of the guys took off too fast for me whilst I gradually dropped the early leader on the first big ascent. Soon after I lost sight of the leader and thought possibly that he had missed a hidden switchback junction where the arrow had blown down but I saw out the corner of my eye at the last second. To cut a very long story short, from there on in, I thought I was either in the lead or very lost as I never saw the other guy again (or anyone behind me). At points I was virtually blown off my feet, constantly blasted with torrential rain and in other places running for miles in a path that had become a fast flowing burn! All the time I had the nagging doubt about how much extra we had added on at the start and so when 13 miles clicked through on my Garmin, although I had no idea where I was, I knew for sure that I was nowhere near the finish as I was on a trail down by the A82 and the finish was back up at the Gondola station. The only option was to switch to survival mode, to slow down and conserve energy just in case I had another 3 or 4 miles and 1000 feet to go. All the time I was doing my Tourettes audition rehearsal and thinking about the others in the race moving slower than me and hence out in these freezing conditions for longer (if indeed they had managed to see get onto the course at all). A mile or so and a big climb later I popped up over a bank into the car park where a guy shouted to me to run round to the back of the cafe to finish.

A huge cheer went up as I opened the cafe door and revealed my number (first race I have done wearing a running jacket over my vest, first race I have finished by opening a door). Still thought I might have won at that point until the early leader appeared to shake my hand. 1 hour 41 minutes for 14.1 miles, 1050 feet of climbing, second overall, first vet. Must get a good prize for that. No, nothing, just a medal. FFS! Colin had an even worse experience than me as his pack did not know about the turn off the A82 at Torrlundy and ran to the first 30mph sign on the outskirts of Fort William where a van driver told him he had missed the turn! This meant that Colin ran 16 miles in total but did amazingly well to re-pass virtually the whole field to finish 5th overall and second vet. Genevieve, Don, Phil and Dawn all finished in good shape (but not happy having all run the same 14.1 mile variation of the course as me) whilst Liz was the only sensible one, opting out of the 21k at the last minute and doing the 5k instead.

Anyway I can't recommend the race or the event organisers (it would be a good place to train in your own free time though). I can recommend the Clachaig Inn where we retreated for dinner (so enjoyable that, on doing my daily weight check on Monday morning, I had actually put weight on!).
Alan
(ps the critical turn we missed was about 400m after the start. We did spot the arrow lying in a ditch on driving out of the car park).