Day 91: ‘Every time you go for a run, take a stone from the top of Scald Law and put it on Carnethy. We only need 3 metres off one and 3 metres added to the other if that, taking into account glacial rebound and remeasurement by the OS. We can do it!’ New identity…
Tag: Pentlands
To go to the hills by any means is prose. But to run among them? This is poetry…
I have been running for almost 22 hours. Running is probably the wrong word. I have been moving – insistently moving over the summits of the 23 Munros that form the wild, high loop of Ramsay’s Round, Scotland’s classic 24-hour mountain running challenge. I am running down the rubble of the tourist track on Ben…
The call of the mountains
It is 7am on Sunday. A furious wind tries to stop me opening the car door. The forecast is for 50mph gales. I have scheduled a four-hour run in the Pentlands, the green and brown hills that back on to Edinburgh’s southern fringe. From the car park, the ascent of my first hill – 478-metre…
Carnethy 5: a humbling lesson in hill running
Having only lived in Scotland for five months, snow still excites me. ‘It’s snowing!’ I announce to the household whenever the stuff starts falling from the sky. ‘It’s snowing,’ I tell my daughter, frogmarching her to the window. ‘Look at the snow,’ I point. ‘Look at it!’ She shrugs and walks off.
A love letter to the hills from the hill runner
I am running down a hill. I am running down a hill in Scotland. I am running down a hill while holding the hand of my shrieking two-year-old daughter. I am running down a hill while wincing from a dull, groaning pain in an ankle. I am running down a hill in jeans and a jumper.
Heights of Madness 