West Highland Way 2014 - Onwards and Upwards

Davy Watt flying into Rowardennan

With the minibus still suspended in the air and Davy through Balmaha, it became clear that Karen and Jim (Mearns) would be denied their runs from Balmaha to Millarochy and Millarochy to Rowardennan respectively. We still held out hope that Jim Holmes would get to take over from Davy at Rowardennan for the 14 mile Loch Lomond leg though. Despite selflessly offering both of her two later stages, Alison's get-out plan failed and there was no option but to double Karen and Jim up on other Harriers' legs. Karen quickly snapped up a place accompanying Alison and a later 8 mile stage with Frances. This left Jim with few options for a longer leg; he could either run with Eddie, Phimi, Stuart Waugh, me or Jim Holmes. None seemed like a good option to Jim so we decided for him; the loch-side with Jim Holmes. The reasons were simple enough: a) this was only the second hardest leg (now that Davy had discovered the new, hardest leg), b) Jim had recent Lochaber marathon form so 14 miles wouldn't be a problem, c) two Jim's running together would make it easier for us to remember who was supposed to be in the bus and who was running. What we forgot was that Jim was not that experienced at running on really rough terrain and that he had run a tough half marathon and a 10k in the previous week. Anyway, it was a done deal.

A short while later the AA man returned, the wheel was fitted and we were off to Rowardennan. In what seemed like perfect planning, we took the final big space in the car park at Rowardennan and awaited Davy's arrival. 5 minutes later he flew around the corner to find not one, not two but no Jim's waiting to take over (both in the toilet). Only 30 seconds were lost before both Jim's were off and running and we had time to congratulate Davy on a fantastic 16 mile, 2:17 effort with no support, no fluids, no nutrition and on one of the hottest days of the year so far. Only Davy Watt from among us could have managed this. Naturally, Davy was excused from any further running duties for the rest of the trip!

We now faced the tortuous journey around Loch Lomond to the newly named Beer Glass Farm (easier to spell) to await the Jim's. Russell was now in convoy, having called him to join us earlier than planned so that he could experience our minibus woes first hand. Half way up the other side of the loch, a mystery phone call introduced with the words "Where are you?" caused a brief moment of panic, thinking "what's happened to the Jim's, surely they haven't beaten us to Beer Glass Farm?" before I realised it was the absent Gerry Mullen (excused with a note from the SNO's conductor so he could perform Mahler's 8th that night, quite an elaborate excuse but plenty of witnesses) suffering from WHWithdrawal symptoms. Suitably filled in with the progress report, we carried on to Inverarnan where we were surprised to find another absentee, Billy Buchanan. Billy (and both of the Kenny's) also had a novel excuse in the form of a blog post on a kayak trip (see the post below) but if he had been really keen he could have run any of the second half legs. We wandered around to the changeover point at the farm and had only a short wait for Jim Holmes, Jim Mearns being nowhere to be seen.

Jim Holmes arrives alone to hand over to Joanne

Joanne was raring to go and set off towards Crianlarich with Eddie for company. Meanwhile Stephen headed 10 minutes or so back-up the trail to look for Jim having been advised that he was OK but had told Jim H (on second thoughts, it may have been better to have had people with different names on this leg) to forge ahead prior to Inversnaid. Jim Holmes had completed a fantastic run and looked in very good shape at the finish, so all credit to Jim for handling this tough course on his first attempt and preparing so well for it. As we had a tight handover at Crianlarich, we had to leave Russell to bring Stephen and hopefully Jim whilst we headed off. This could have been a major disaster as there was a strong chance that Russell would miss his bacon rolls at Crianlarich.

At Crianlarich, Alison and Karen had a one mile climb just to get to their starting point and this was quite a task in the heat. However they made it and had some time to spare, even giving/making up tourist advice to some Czech women on the trail before a very powerful Joanne appeared on the horizon, and yes, she was alone too!

Joanne at the end of a fine run

Turns out Eddie had been dropped at the main road crossing and had told Joanne to carry on without him. Seems like a road crossing phobia is developing here for Eddie. With another tight changeover, we had to descend back to the bus but thankfully both Jim Mearns and Eddie were there, Eddie having run along the main road to save his legs for his tough stage later on. It seems likely that Russell also made his bacon rolls stop too.

To be continued......
Alan