Thursday, June 30, 2022

Munro Trip and Van Try Out

Colin booked a van for a long weekend trip to the mountains to test out the potential use of a converted van for mountain trips away. 

The van was a Toyota Proace. Small wheel base and low roof so not that much bigger than a large car and less than 2 m in height so should be able to get under most car park barriers. Moved in Hannah's mattress and other essentials into the van and headed off on Thursday to Glen Etive.

The Glen was pretty quiet compared to my last visit in August 2021. The car park at the foot of the munros was empty so I had an idyllic location all to myself that night.


The evening passed fairly pleasantly watching movies in the van cabin before heading to bed around 10 pm. Took a couple of hours to drop off but the mattress and temperature were fine and it was a reasonable sleep.

The next morning the overnight rain had stopped and I awoke to get coffee and breakfast but was accosted by a swarm of mini midgies. Horrible things. Got severely bitten around one ankle. Didn't hang about for coffee and headed away from the spot as quickly as possible towards the munro.

It was a fairly pleasant ascent up to Ben Starav. As always was a bit further than expected. At the summit the clouds had descended and there was no visibility at all.

Headed onwards toward the second summit but with tremendous bad timing the rain started and visibility reduced and I became disorientated and unsure of the direction to the next summit. Survival instinct set in and rather than attempt summit two I focussed on the safe route off the mountain which would involve headed to summit 3. This went well and before long the clouds lifted a little. Somewhat downhearted I slogged on my second summit of the day which also offered zero visibility.

It was a long hard slog on the way down over round wet ground. Pretty unpleasant.

On arrival back at the van I booked into the Ballachullish Hotel for the next two nights having decided I'd had enough of the discomfort of the van life. A useful trip in getting the interest in van life out of the system. Definitely not for me.

The next day the weather wasn't good with low cloud and hidden peaks. It was expected to clear a little later in the day so I delayed the start til after lunch but it still wasn't great. I opted for a low level circular walk near the target munros but had no desire to make an attempt on the summits.

The hotel was good and had a couple of reasonable good meals at Fish! - the cooking wasn't quite top notch but rather better than soup in a van.

Up until this trip I had intellectually acknowledged that I wasn't going to complete the munros. I think this trip which had a target of 5 summits but on which I only completed 2 led to the emotional acceptance that I won't and don't desire to complete all the munros. A munro bag trip is much less enjoyable that a hill race, orienteering event or MTB-O event. 


Thursday, June 23, 2022

Bangor Visit with Max

Drove across to Bangor via the ferry on Thursday 23 June after picking Max up in Glasgow. A pretty smooth journey. Maxwell was out for a golf club dinner on the first evening and also for lunch on Friday as it was Captain's day weekend.

Max and Colin headed out for a longish run along the shore getting close to Helen's Bay. Slow but tiring enough in the warm weather. Lunch afterwards at the Red Berry on the seafront.


In the evening we joined Maxwell and Liz for a concert in aid of Ukraine. It wasn't something we were expecting to enjoy with a choir, singing priest and an opera singer but it was a nice mix of well known songs from many different genres and all pretty good.

On Saturday we took Max to the Ulster Folk Museum. We were somewhat surprised by the crowds that had turned up. It was a special Ferguson Tractor day that had brought the tractor fans out in droves. We walked around the town area and had lunch in the cafe after quite a long queue. Nothing too strenuous for Maxwell but a pleasant visit.


In the evening we went to Bull & Claw with Maxwell and Liz. Colin tried crab claws for the first time - pretty good and the prawns were excellent.

On Sunday we journeyed home by road and ferry.


Tuesday, June 21, 2022

Saughton Rose Garden Run

A nice training run punctuated with a stop to look around the Rose Garden at Saughton. It is looking very well.


 

Tuesday, June 14, 2022

Thames Walk Oxford to Abingdon

We spend Tuesday doing a riverside walk along the Thames. Met Hannah at Folly Bridge for coffee and then headed off getting as far as the Kings Arms for lunchtime. Hannah was suffering from hay fever and given a pass to head home early which was a good call given the fields and grasses in the second half of the walk. 


 We had dinner at the Gardeners Arms and said our goodbyes to Hannah. We headed home on the long drive the next morning.

Monday, June 13, 2022

Oxford / Blenheim Palace

We drove on the next morning to meet Hannah at here Edgeway Road flat and then spent the afternoon at Blenheim Palace. Enjoyed the walled garden and the butterflies and a walk through Woodstock.


In the evening we went for dinner at the Ivy and Hannah took us for an illicit tour of the gardens at Corpus Christi college.


 


Sunday, June 12, 2022

IronMan 70.3 Staffordshire

On Saturday we completed the short drive from Manchester to Stafford and spent most of the day registering and setting up kit for the IronMan. The event has split transitions with Swim and T1 at Chasewater a good 30 min drive away from T2 and Run in central Stafford. We stayed overnight in the North Stafford Premier Inn (Hurricane) which was horribly hot.

Race day was a very early start with Alarm at 5.15 am and then a drive to the Chasewater car park and then a fair bit of waiting about for the rolling start swim. First start was around 7 am and I think I started towards 8 am very near the back with low expectations for my swim.



The water was fairly choppy which made it a bit more challenging than Foxlake and a long 1.2 miles more or less linear course. Felt pretty comfortable in the swim and was going faster than enough people to be confident I'd make the cut off. Clocked in with a time of 58:59 which I am pretty pleased with.

A few hundred metres run to transition and I took my time to dry properly and make sure I was well set up for a comfortable ride. It was cloudy enough to merit wearing a shower jacket for the first hour. Felt pretty good for the first half of the ride and average speed was above 16 mph for a while. After that it felt a bit more challenge with a degree of fatigue and a more uphill section into Cannock Chase. Once this was done a more general downward trend into Stafford and finished in decent shape in a time of 3:53:26 for the roughly 56 mile route.

T2 was a bit more straightforward and I was soon off on the run and a slow but steady pace. It was very nice run route mainly in the town centre with lots of support lining the route and lots of feed/water stations. Whilst it was never easy I was pretty comfortable running at a steady pace and just walking up the inclines to conserve energy. Got round in 2:25:38 which is a terrible half marathon time but very reasonably given what preceded and the sharp hills on the route.

Overall very pleased with the effort.




Friday, June 10, 2022

RHS Bridgewater

On the way South for the IronMan Colin and Cherry stopped for the afternoon at RHS Bridgewater. It was looking very well with the walled garden and the areas near the visitor centre looking in great shape.