JS and I arrive in Inverness with the Caledonian Sleeper at the scheduled time, or thereabout. We go to the usual place for breakfast (café Artysans). I have a savoury waffle, which is disappointing. Will not stop us coming back, though!
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| Bacon on toast |
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| Savoury waffle |
We take a stroll into town, call at the Whisky Shop (aka high-street robbery) and end up at Leakey's, a second-hand book shop in an old church. Amazing shop if I know one!
Many old prints, some of castles, some of birds, maps, and some of unsuspected places. JS giggles when she finds one of Namur... only to find one from Huy a minute later.
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| Bingo! |
After a inordinate amount of time looking at books and prints, we board a train to Nairn, which we reach hours earlier than scheduled.
The first person we meet on the road out of the station insults me because he feels I force him onto the road -- I have a huge backpack and a tent, he is empty-handed. There is no traffic.
At the B&B, the room is ready. that will save us from wandering about with our backpacks.
The host is a David Cameron, who complains that someone down in London has been cashing his cheques for a while.
We settle down, take a walk alongside the river Nairn and onto the harbour, where it starts raining. I spot what I think are oystercatchers, but quickly turn out to be ringed plovers (first time), and two curlews, which JS assured me (correctly) are redshanks (first time too). Good day, then. :)
The rain vanishes as we reach the seafront. The promenade west takes us past an exercise park, where we exercise (there is a ski simulator -- ha! ha!) Further on, right before the golf club, we meet a friendly cat in a residential area, then we go back inland.
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| Wochu lookin' at? |
Time for a shower, then food at The Classroom. I have mussels, then trio of pork, while JS has the soup of the day, then the catch of the day (I forget what it is).
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We round it off by splitting a plate of churros and I sip a Longrow 12yo 100 PROOF. The whole is very nice, though the whisky is served in an inadequate glass.
Day 2
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| Healthy start |
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| Heavier finish |
A bit of a lie-in, on this nice Friday. Breakfast (full Scottish) puts me in the right mood, yet the long train journey from yesterday is taking its toll: three naps by lunch time. \o/
Around 14:00, JS and I take the shuttle to Cawdor castle, where registrations take place. It is also where competitors retrieve the hired bikes.
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| As a side note, it is a picturesque castle |
Ugh? Competitors? Bike hire? Yes. JS really wanted to take part in RatRace's Coast to Coast. Since part of that is done in pairs, I (a little reluctantly) accepted to accompany her. I do not do organised races, you see: the people, the noise, the competition aspect... I like solace in my exercise. However, I love Scotland (there is a piece of news and a half!); that made it easier to give in.
There are too many people for me already at the registration. Bah. All those will certainly be spread out during the race itself. We are given the bib and kit, before we collect and try our bicycles. Good gear, it would seem. More and more competitors arrive, forming huge queues. Luckily, we are done.
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| Let the suckers queue |
The below becomes stuck in my head for the rest of the trip. The lyrics will give a clue as to why. :-)
While on site, we visit the castle grounds -- no time to see the inside of Cawdor castle, unfortunately. All the same, the grounds are wonderful, with tidy hedges, lots of manicured bushes and flowers, a maze (unfortunately shut) and many birds (robins and one song thrush, among others). From the back of the castle, several forest trails meander. No time to follow them.
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| I have a similar picture taken 26 years earlier |
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| Butterfly sunbathing |
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| The maze |
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| A less well-known angle |
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| Forestry |
It takes us a long time to get the shuttle back, and we quickly understand why when it finally appears: the driver, in a bid to be helpful and nice, offers to stop anywhere; lack of decision means we stop too often and too long, which delays the following courses. Argh.
Regardless, after a ten-minute journey, we are back in Nairn and head for the Classroom again: soup of the day (different day, different soup) for JS, haggis balls for me, seafood tagliatelle for JS, trio of pork for me. Great again.
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Early-ish night. Tomorrow is a big day.
Day 3
We arranged to have breakfast early, and a lighter breakfast it is too (porridge, fruit and salmon on toast). Most at the B&B this morning are doing the same, all here for the race as they are.
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| Healthy |
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| Still healthey |
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| Healthy again |
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| But I am brave (and a bit foolish) |
Time to head for the departure with Wave 3. We drop off our baggage, which is transported to tonight's destination by lorry. Then, it is the enclosure by the start line. The enclosure is full as we arrive, packed with Dutch and Belgians.
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| The smell of beer and cheese is almost unbearable |
The briefing we get is really: a weather forecast, a call to help each other, and a warning that a piece of wind turbine is being transported around midday in the Fort Augustus area; should anyone be there at that time, the road will be closed for almost an hour, thanks for your understanding. The bloke adds that we would have to be pretty quick indeed to be impacted, as that is so soon and far away, yet he had to say it. A huge murmur of disapproval comes from the runners at his doubting our capabilities, which amuses me greatly. And finally, it is on.
It is an easy, if muddy run alongside the Nairn river, then into the woods, past the Royal Brackla distillery and to Cawdor castle, eleven kilometres away. The pace is very leisurely for me and I do not even break a sweat. The day is young, though and the route is so crowded, it is irritatingly difficult to progress any quicker.
At Cawdor, we struggle to find our bikes amongst the hundreds of them. We eventually meet them exactly where we left them. D'oh.
A bit of stretching, then we begin the bike ride: eighty kilometres on road. The weather is brilliant. The road is mostly flat and the ride uneventful. Again, it is too crowded to be comfortable, or even enjoyable. I am also furious at the amount of rubbish left on the ground by other cyclists. I cannot stop each time to pick it up, though.
Towards the end, the final hill pass is rather challenging, though it corresponds more to my recollection of cycling in Scotland than the previous seventy kilometres. Once at the summit, a photographer snipes everyone, as an organiser yells that we only have two kilometres left -- all downhill.
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| I am ogling the horizon Yet I see no challenge |
Downhill it is, too, with steep 12% descents. Any incident would be lethal, yet we suffer none. The disc-brakes are put to good use, though -- it is open road, after all ("we did not manage to close Scotland for you," they said). I will discover tomorrow that I have been using the front brake almost exclusively; somehow, the front brake is on the right-hand side, opposite to every bicycle I have ever ridden. Flipping Brits!
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| JS shows them pushers how a bike is supposed to be used |
We reach Fort Augustus easily, in glorious sunshine. Short run to the kayak line, where we have to queue for twenty minutes (that count in our total time) to take our shoes off (on gravel -- aouch!) and embark. The navigation is a pathetically short loop around two buoys. Is that what we trained for? Ah well.
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| Don't stop moving baby All that paddling drive me crazy |
Some take a well-deserved dip. The loch water is blistering cold.
We return to the campsite, pitch the tent, take a shower, then queue for a hot dog (the wait for a pizza is an hour). Staff are flying drones above the site.
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| Foot-long hot dogs Classic above Krakauer below |
The amount of litter everywhere is quickly out of control. In fact, the whole feels like a frat trip, with a band that plays until late, lots of smoking (cigarettes) and copious quantities of beer. Strange way to approach a physical challenge, I tell myself.
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| Good to sleep in a tent again, though |
I fall asleep easily, though I do not sleep particularly well and wake up several times.
Day 4
It is raining. Shit. When camping, what can be worse than unpitching a wet tent? We do it anyway, and easily too -- modern tents present no challenge, any longer. Speaking of tents, some have been "deposited" in the communal skip, alongside insulation mattresses and other pieces of kit, sacrificed on the altar of performance. Why bring your tent back, when it cost £20 and dumping it can help you shave off two minutes off your overall time? Disgusting waste. The rubbish everywhere is now shocking too. Breakfast (fruit and porridge) is as squandered as everything else, with apples being tossed in the rubbish untouched, energy-bar wrappings littering the floor, half-eaten porridge cups etc. Revolting.
Our first challenge today is cycling. Fifty kilometres, to be precise -- almost nothing. Oh! Off-road cycling. The first half is deliciously flat and follows an old train track (where we spot a red squirrel crossing the path), then a towpath. It would be a wonderful day out, were it not for the downpour. A weir about a third in makes my feet all wet. My toes start freezing and will never recover whilst on the bike. We are also covered in mud. The best is yet to come, though: half of the route is a trail through the woods with sharp slopes -- ups and downs. The ups are steep and hard to negotiate, with all the riders who stop and go, and the downs are very dangerous. One false move and we fly over the handlebar, scrape our mugs on the rocky ground and look forward to disfigurement, if not death. Again, not too difficult to manoeuvre, if it were not for the vast number of competitors everywhere. Where do they come from anyway? We wanted to leave early, yet managed to be in the last batch of thirty-or-so to leave the campsite. Collision is always near, though we dodge it successfully. JS's chain comes off once, which is quickly fixed.
Although much shorter than yesterday, this ride feels longer and more challenging. It is the crowd and the weather that make it hard. For a seasoned mountain biker (which I am not), this is a piece of piss. For a casual rider (which I am), it is a sporty ride.
We arrive in Fort William in decent time (by my standards), after three hours of riding. Neptune's staircase on our left, then Ben Nevis distillery, then Glenlochy. Beautiful. No time to gaze, though: we are on the Highland equivalent of a motorway. Fucking dangerous traffic.
The arrival is on a sports pitch. It is the wettest piece of lawn I have ever seen, sometimes ten-centimetre underwater. We hand the bikes back, then have a bit of time to catch our breath. I wolf down Jaffa cakes (they're a palm oil-laden, inferior version of PiMM's, but I cannot help it; I am not even hungry), a packet of cheese-and-onion crisps (great), and force myself to drink a bit (I have had nothing since we left this morning).
Here too, the lack of respect is shocking. Apples all the way up to the toilet floor (which is covered in mud), wrappings every-fucking-where, half-eaten, half-drunk everything tossed with no manner, energy bars and drinks plagueing the whole area.
On a more positive note, I am very happy I thought of taking a spare pair of socks, which I put on my still-humid feet in my still-wet trainers. All the same, that feels like luxury -- little do I know what is coming. I force myself to pee (never stopped once to do it in two days, which is hardly surprising, considering I did not drink).
Off we go for what I fear is going to be the most challenging part of this race: a twenty-five-kilometre trail run. We run indeed, all drowsy from cycling and heavy from the wet shoes, but we do run for a couple of kilometres. Considering we have twenty-three more to go, we decide to take it easy on the long uphill on the flank of Ben Nevis, and then we find out we will actually never do any running, anymore. The trail is a mixture of Ben Nevis hike, West Highland Way and old military trail. What that really means is: it is a rocky hike that would be a struggle with hiking boots in good weather. For the second half of it, we are walking in a riverbed. In pouring rain. The water is occasionally ankle-deep. And that is the route. After crossing half a million streams on a downhill slope alongside a hill, we reach an outpost. A pitched tent, torches and food supplies. None of that is for us. The two guys there are staff, then. I look around and see no way forward: a torrential stream blocks our way. One of the blokes yells at us: "Groups of five, grab each other by the coat arms, form a circle and we will cross like that." Funny lad, I think. Where is the bridge? Oh! shit, he is not joking. I ask him anyway. "Consider yourselves lucky: this morning, the water was chest-deep. All the morning runners had to be rerouted to Kinlochleven for a twelve-kilometre detour." On we go, then. It is actually very amusing, in a rock 'n roll sort of way. The downside is that the trail is another ten kilometres on even worse terrain than before, under more rain, in soaked shoes and socks. And it is uphill too.
We carry on strong all the same. We progress much more slowly, however, stuck behind the group who crossed the river with us. The law of the herd -- as quick as the slowest individual in it. Said individual is right before us and, if I manage to overtake him several times, JS does not, so narrow is the trail. I am convinced we lose at least thirty minutes because of that.
More streams, more bogs, more slopes, slips, (others') tumbles. The final downhill is boggy and muddy as anything I have seen. It is also ravaged by hundreds and hundreds of racers passing through it, trampling the grass in a (doomed-to-fail) bid to avoid the mud. So much for nature preservation. More litter, more frustration, more being stuck behind people (who keep falling to boot). We make it to the end after a stretch that is particularly demanding on knees and quads.
During that trail hike, I pick up all the litter I can collect, and drop it with staff at relays, where some congratulate me. I find it depressing. As I unload, one asks me if it is my first Coast to Coast.
"Yes."
"Are you enjoying yourself?"
"Not really."
"Will you do it again?"
"I don't think so. It is so crowded I cannot enjoy the scenery, there is so much litter my blood boils constantly. I do not want to be associated with a crowd that behaves that way."
The next step to take with our recently-awarded finisher-challenger medal (that reads 105 miles in 1 day -- that is the expert route), is the soggy, horribly dirty hut, where we are offered a soup in a polystyrene cup (so much for eco-friendliness) and a dreary roll. It hits the spot, of course. Warms us up, puts the machine back in working order and brings us back to the land of the living. I pause and realise I have not eaten or drunk anything since Fort William, almost seven hours ago, yet did not feel hunger, nor thirst, nor need to wee, and actually no fatigue either. The final hike down was a bit hard, but apart from the weather conditions, the wetness and the frustration at being stuck behind slower competitors, and most importantly, the irrational (?) hatred stemming from all the littering and general lack of respect shown by the participants, I have the feeling I could have gone on for much longer. Still, it is with a certain sense of relief that we reach the B&B.
The host reassures us that he is hosting other racers and that the place is already a smelly mess, he insists we do not need to take our shoes off. A bit of stretching, a hot shower, and off to bed.
Day 5
The full Scottish does the usual trick (although no haggis, nor pudding!) An Australian guest starts chatting to the German couple a the other table (unsuspecting holiday-makers), then the place quickly swarms with Rat Racers. "Have you looked at the results?" asks one. "The result is: we finished it." Yup, my kind of answer. Competition against others is for kids. Competition with one's own limits is my take on a challenge.
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| With scrambled eggs... |
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| ...with (overly) fried eggs. |
We bid good bye to the wonderful ballet of a robin, on the bins enclosure, and head to the bus stop. We are heading back to Fort William, today. The journey is as quick (hard to swallow that the bus covers in thirty minutes what we just about hiked in seven hours) as the scenery is beautiful (the game of light the sun plays on the hill flanks is breathtaking). We drop off the bags at the station and stroll through town.
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| Aaaaaaaaaand, yes, of course! |
The book shop catches our attention (if only we could buy every book in there!), as does the Lochaber Geopark (fascinating geological presentation). We have lunch at Crannog (of course), where the food is still the donkey's and the whisky selection tasteful. After mackerell crostini and fillet of seabass, I have a pistachio fondant with a Glen Grant 21yo Adelphi. Shamefully, they have not learnt anything in terms of glassware, over the last five years, since we were here. A gigantic tumbler. I am given a replacement glass, which is an oversized Cognac vessel. Nae bother. The whisky is as good as the meal nonetheless.
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It starts raining. We head to the West Highland Museum, which is packed with interesting stuff, from a history of the green berets to taxidermy, period dresses and more geology shenanigans. Recommended! It closes at 17:00, though.
We find shelter in the book shop again, then head towards the station for a beverage. The coffee shop is closed, the pub is open. Tea for JS, Bowmore 18yo OB for me. It is surprisingly fruity, behind the earthy peat. I love it. Again, poured in a totally inadequate glass (water glass straight out of the 1970s). I find it depressing. One would not imagine the French serving quality wine in a mug, nor the Belgians serving an abbey beer in Champagne saucers. Aside from supermarket blends, whisky deserves a nosing glass!
The time has come to leave. The train is there and boarding soon starts. Lots of racers are returning home. The staff members are vastly unequal, in terms of efficiency, and the whole boarding takes a while, when logic dictates it should take five minutes. We make it on board easily enough and it is off to bed early. We reach London in the morning, with a lot of washing and tidying to look forward to.
Conclusion
Glad I took part in this once -- really, one could choose a worse race to take part in. At the same time, so many have a different take on a race than mine -- with technical help, controlled food intake, energy drinks, looking for performance vs. own limits, yelling, littering... Organised races are definitely not for me. The weather on Sunday made is more challenging and rendered the route rather inadequate for any mode of transportation in any gear, but really, it is the other racers who spoiled the experience for me. Glad I did it once, I do not need to do it again. I exercise not to beat others, but to test my own limits. I love Scotland's open spaces because they are devoid of humans and allow one to connect with nature. Something we could hardly do, this weekend.
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