Rat Race Run Britannia - Week 5, day 4 - Lairg to Kinbrace
The Bog Day!
Distance: 61.46km (total so far 1415.26km)
Total climb: 544m (total so far 25,016m)
Steps: 71,318 (total so far 1,677,772)
Also:
Number of shoe changes: 2
Number of times taped feet: 2
Number of times fell over: 1
We'd been warned about today - today was the bog day. From previous experience of Rat Race events, I rather assumed that Scotland was all bog once you got north of Glasgow, but actually we'd had very little on our route so far - some small patches on Exmoor and the Lakes, but nothing in Scotland itself. Apparently, today was going to correct that. It was exactly what we needed in the middle of another 60km day! And anyone whose read the account of my trip through the Outer Hebrides will be very aware that bogs are not one of my favourite things.
However, the first stage was to get that far. The first 21km of the day were road, heading north out of Lairg initially alongside Loch Shin and then further inland. It wasn't the most interesting bit of road, but slightly enlivened by getting out of the way of the forestry trucks - big trucks carrying whole tree trunks, usually with a trailer carrying the same. The road was a Highlands A road, which meant single lane with passing places! We had a ministop at 10km, and a proper feedstation at 20km just before we left the road.
We'd been offered the chance for a shoe change at the feedstation, which meant we could get away with using road shoes for this first road section and switching to trail shoes for the bog - which I did, and it sounded great until later. We did need them, though - the soft going started pretty much as soon as we left the road.
The path was straight across the moor, and yes, the going was frequently boggy, although still fairly good going by the standards of the Outer Hebrides. One thing that made a difference was that you could see the path - in the Outer Hebrides this was frequently so disused that you had to follow the line on the map and hope, and so navigation here was a lot easier.
The going was definitely boggy, though, as I managed to prove to a degree:
Travelling with a different group, Andy discovered somewhere a bit deeper!
The boggy section didn't actually last that long - about 5km or so - and then we climbed over the watershed and looked out over the next loch - Loch Choire. That was quite a view.
Our lunch feedstation was right at the end of the loch - that was the closest they'd been able to get a van, and even that was at the end of a very long track from the road. However, it was still another 10km along the edge of the loch, and some of the going was still interesting. The footbridges were in a slight state of disrepair!
The views were still fairly stunning, though.
Lunch was where my plan failed. I had assumed or understood that we'd be able to get our road shoes back at lunch, as that was where we caught up with our pitstop bags. However, there was simply no way that was going to work - it would take longer by road from the first feedstation to the lunch spot than it took to walk it. I didn't have a third shoe option, as I had no hybrid pair, so that meant I was in my soggy trail shoes for the afternoon, walking up a hard track, which didn't appeal too much. I did treat myself to a clean pair of socks, even though taking off the wet ones also involved taking off all my blister tape and having to reapply it. The lunch break took a good half hour, of which less than ten minutes were spent eating!
The afternoon was almost entirely spent on a track, which was a good surface for those who still had some running in their legs - with a combination of blisters and a slightly shaky hip, that wasn't me, although I was able to get into a decent walking stride. This meant that I was on my own for most of the afternoon - I couldn't walk as fast as the runners, but I was probably the fastest walker - and the trail continued into the distance in a fairly endless fashion.
Again, there was nothing unpleasant about it, and the weather was holding, so this was another opportunity to break out the headphones and listen to some music. And, thanks to some work on the wifi in the pub the previous night, this time everything worked. I had a choice of music available, but the Scottish band Runrig seemed to be the obvious choice - a playlist someone had put together than included songs I knew and several that I didn't. A lot of their music is inspired by the scenery and hills of the Scots highlands and islands, so it was a good feeling to listen to it while walking through it.
It was still a long way - our last long day, they got shorter after this. One thing that made life easier was that a couple of the wonderful marshals had made it round from the first feedstation this morning and came down this long trail offering a shoe swap back to road shoes. That made me feel a lot more comfortable, and also meant that I was almost a minute per km faster. This was useful, because you could see in the distance that the clouds were rolling in.
The last little bit from the final feedstation to the end of the day at Kinbrace was all on the road, and you still had to dodge the logging wagons, but it was easy enough. I was trying to keep the pace up, though, because the clouds were certainly gathering, and I wasn't complaining when I finally saw Kinbrace coming round the corner. As it was, I missed the downpour of rain and hail by about 5 minutes!
So that was Bog Day. Compared with the Outer Hebrides, I almost felt short changed - it was a very short and limited piece of bog compared with what we'd had to fight through there. But I certainly wasn't complaining!
Song of the day - it really has to be Runrig again. "The Road and the River" seems to fit the day perfectly, as well as being a great song.
Last: The lonely glen
Next: Trains, blisters and rainbows
Next: Trains, blisters and rainbows
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