Triathlon Try Out

My entry is in for the New Years Day Triathlon. I had a go at the course on Saturday morning.

400 m swim in 10 min 26
3 Laps of Holyrood park on the bike in 48 mins 06
1 Laps on foot in 33 min 18

Pretty comfortable with the effort and a very good exercise session.

Dunkirk & Kyloe

Family cinema trip to see Dunkirk and steak dinner at Kyloe afterwards. Cherry and Colin tried their first Chateaubriand.

Cruach Ardrain and Beinn Tulaichean

With the weather forecast looking great I headed off at about 9 am towards Crianlarich for some munro bagging. Arrived and ready to go at about midday with the weather looking decidedly dodgy with thick cloud all around and no sign of the sun.

The walk headed under the railway and then up a good path on the wrong side of a river. I missed the recommended turnoff up the mountain seduced by the easy going on the path and finally took a sharp left and up the steep hillside when the path came to an end. It was tough going over steep grassy ground. It felt like a bad route at the time but after going back down the "correct" way I'm not so sure.

Finally arrived at the path at a height of around 750 m and headed up the rough track to the summit. No visibility at the top.

Onwards from the first summit and the weather started to clear for the second summit which presented a lovely straightforward walk to the top.

About turn at the summit and back toward the first peak before cutting left the way I had come. Nice views towards the hills we did last week with Max, Johnny and Alistair.

Good walk taking around 5 hrs 30 mins. Pretty tired after this and a cycle the day before.

Walk from Hospital with Les

Les has been in hospital for about 5 weeks after his fall at home and subsequent head injury and increased memory loss. We took him out for a walk from the hospital to the nearby Craigmillar park area. A walk of about an hour which he was very comfortable with.

An Caisteal and Beinn a Chroin

I headed out with Max and his two pals Alistair and Johnny to bag some of the Crianlarich munros. We had aspirations for three possible summits but in the end made do with 2.

Start was at Derrydaroch farm where we crossed the West Highland Way and headed up a track towards a dam after about 30 minutes. From there we headed across damp grassy lamp to a ridge and the a col below An Caisteal. The final ascent was shrouded in cloud which made route finding difficult and always makes it more demanding. Clouds on the summit so no view at all.

We headed back the way we came but very quickly branched off on well worn tracks to the second summit. A nice descent and then a very steep climb up to the ridge of Beinn a Chroin. We couldn't decide if we were at the summit and went to the far end of the ridge to make sure we didn't miss it. The clouds finally cleared at this point for some nice views.

We got back to the col between the two summits and decided that this was enough for today. We could probably have managed the third peak but we'd been out a long time already and there were some aching joints on the younger walkers.

Schiehallion

Max and Colin made there second attempt of climbing Schiehallion after a family outing many years ago where we stopped short of the summit due tonight closing in.

This time we were at the mountain just after midday with good weather so no excuses for not making it this time. We made rapid progress up the hill moving at a very solid pace. The first part was steep but easy underfoot but for the second half became very rocky and stoney underfoot.

Made the full journey up and down in 3 hrs 10 mins. This is the 59th highest munro but the actual climb isn't so big at around 670 metres as the start is quite high and there are no undulations.