Highland Fling 2019

The Highland Fling 2019

TIME: 9 Hours 56 Minutes and 28 Seconds

OVERALL : 100th/647 finishers

GENDER: 9th/173 females

Ready for round 3

“Strong winds are expected to hit much of Scotland this weekend with the arrival of Storm Hannah.” (Herald Scotland, 25/04/2019).
That’s not the weather report you want to see when you’re planning to run a 53 mile cross country ultra from 6am on the Saturday morning. However up until now the sun had always shined on Jonny Fling, no matter what the weather report said, so all would be alright on the day…wouldn’t it?

Somehow it was the end of April and Fling time again. How had that happened? Since my great run at Falkirk (also in pretty awful weather) in February, training had been up and down. My foot had hurt post-race so I’d had a bit of recovery from that, then I got the cold, followed by a horrific bout of sinusitis which knocked me for six, followed by ANOTHER cold… and then finally when training was almost back on track it somehow became time to taper for the race. Not ideal, but with the mantra of “what will be will be” going around and around in my brain and reminding myself that yes a good race could happen, but it was all just a warm up for the West Highland Way in June , I got around to planning, prepping, stressing, and eating before I was ready to hit the hay for my pre race 3 or 4 hours sleep. A bit more stressing came with the horrific weather forecast and 3 or 4 kit choice changes were made before I decided just to be brave and go with a skort but layer up with arm sleeves, a long sleeved top and swapped my lighter jacket for my OMM and thicker gloves. After all skin is waterproof, isn’t it?
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Glenmore 24 – RACE REPORT

Glenmore 24 Hour Race 2018

DISTANCE: 118.5 Miles

OVERALL : 8th/120

GENDER: 3rd/40 females

100 miles, what a feeling!

The 100 mile barrier is the obvious next step up from the West Highland Way race, but until this year I hadn’t really seriously thought about doing it in the near future. I’m still quite young in terms of ultra-running and hope to have plenty more years of racing and adventures to come. However, when you meet inspirational likeminded people on your crazy journey, these idea come into play much more quickly that you could imagine. The 1st of April 2018 was when this ridiculous plan was hatched. Jo and I had travelled up to the North section of the West Highland Way for a big training run ahead of my WHW race in June. It had been the farthest both of us had run in quite a while; me coming back from injury and Jo getting her running mojo back after a brief dip having had a phenomenal 2017. We’d got up at ridiculous o’clock, watched the sunrise as we drove through Glen Etive, had perfect weather, a brilliant run and were totally inspired. We decided somewhere along the way that the huge distances in the races we were already doing that year (the WHW for me and the Great Glen for Jo) were not far enough, and we wanted to make it our aim to break the 100 mile barrier that year. That evening we both put out names on the Glenmore waiting list with a backup plan of running part of the Costal route supported by friends if we weren’t successful in getting in. The longer the wait, the more we really, really wanted in. We banked loads of miles, hills and even got in a wee practice run of running loops by going around and around and around Lochore Meadows for 6 hours taking in Harran Hill on each loop, which is a bit steeper than the hill on the Glenmore loop, but elevation is always good!
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RACE REPORT – The West Highland Way Race 2018

“I’m often asked what I think about as I run. Usually the people who ask this have never run long distances themselves. I always ponder the question. What exactly do I think about when I’m running? I don’t have a clue.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

The West Highland Way Race 2018

TIME: 21 Hours 2 Minutes and 51 Seconds

OVERALL : 31st/198 finishers

GENDER: 4th/46 females

Why we do it…

The West Highland Way race 2018 was a race unlike any other. Once again the magic of the race, along with 21 hours racing, being awake most of the day before added on to a few nights post race insomnia, has mangled my already fragile end of term brain. Trying to put it into words has been a struggle up until now, but I think the story is finally ready to fall out of my fingers…
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The Highland Fling 2018 – RACE REPORT

The Highland Fling 2018

TIME: 10 Hours 07 Minutes and 09 Seconds

OVERALL : 107th/673 finishers

GENDER: 13th/186 females

run finish

The Highland Fling 2018 was to be not only my first ‘A’ race of the season, but my first race of the season. My run training went downhill in January after a foot injury threw me off course and I wasn’t back to high weekly mileage until the end of February, which meant about 5 weeks of proper training before the taper began. What could possibly go wrong?!
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New year, new you? Nah, more of the same please :)

New year always seems to be about change. Whether is be changing yourself or changing things in your life, people always seem to use the new year to kick start these new habits. My New Year isn’t going to be so much about change, but more about focus. I had an amazing year last year; I got to go on adventures to places I’d never even heard of, I got to run some amazing races and go on plenty of wonderful training days out with awesome like minded people and I got to spend time with my loved ones, but I also wasted a lot of time. Be it through watching rubbish TV, looking at my phone at nothing in particular for too long (where does time actually go when you do that?!), or going to bed too late and feeling rubbish in the morning so not getting up early enough to do all the amazing thing I had planned…THAT is my weakness, and that’s why I need more focus. I am working on becoming qualified as a personal trainer and I have a lot of work to do in the build up to it, especially since it has been quite a while since I sat down with my books and highlighters. Social media, smart phones and wifi didn’t exist when I was at University, so switching my focus brain back on will be hard!!

It’s been a while since I last posted and I think I’m about 3 race reports behind, but I can recap that in the annual year round up below… 🙂
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