It’s easy to assume that every hill runner in the Highlands has incredible terrain right on their doorstep. As if we’ve all moved in together in Hamish MacInnes’ house in Glencoe. I wish that was true.

I’ve spent most of the last year in Grantown-on-Spey, 30 odd kilometres downstream of Aviemore. We’re still in the Cairngorms National Park, but it’s hardly the place to come for a mountain running training camp.

From the door I can leave town to the north and enter some of the worst landscape that Scotland has to offer. Heather, heather and more heather blankets the land, some scorched, some not.

Peculiarly sandy estate tracks snake their way through the emptiness, joining up the small estate buildings. I know I’m lucky to have hours of off road running so close by, but this is not an uplifting place to spend your time. In any sense. Not flat, but hardly hilly, I’ve been spending hours running laps of the same hills, trying to cram in metres.

One slithery quad track offers a 12 minutes round trip at a steady effort. There’s a hundred metre climb on farm roads in nearby Glenbeg. I grind around in circles, telling myself that it will turn me into Beth Pascall. Unlike George At-One-With-Nature Foster, I’m not averse to podcasts.

On your bike

Just a 15 minute bike ride away, oozing across Grantown’s southern skyline, the Cromdales look like a more enticing prospect. A gently undulating ridge with a few eye-catching cairns, they look like they should offer pleasant, grassy running. They don’t. All they offer is interminable, infuriating bog.

Running up there last May, when the sun had been baking the earth non stop for 6 weeks, I still found myself foundering shin deep in gloopy, gritty shite. It is a cursed place. The laws of physics are suspended; water refuses to flow downhill, the crest of the ridge remaining sodden year round, despite sitting hundreds of metres above the glens on either side.

The only kind thing you’ll hear people say about the Cromdales is that they make a decent ski tour. To paraphrase, don’t bother going there unless you can multiply the surface area of the soles of your feet many fold.

As if to rub salt in the wound, the Cromdales offer excellent views of much better hills. The slightly more interesting Ben Rinnes to the east, Ben Wyvis to the north, the Cairngorms proper to the south. Some days that reminder that there’s a better world out there makes it easier to keep slogging away. Some days it makes it harder.

Photo: Possibly taken by Munro botherer Donnie Campbell

A pilgrim goes the extra mile

Yesterday I made the pilgrimage to Glenmore, epicentre of Speyside hill running, home to my beloved Meall a’ Bhuachaille and, funny enough, the place I was living when I was running my best. I met Donnie Campbell, who’s been up all the Munros but has never run on the World’s Best Hill, and gave him a comprehensive tour.

Descending for the third time to Ryvoan Bothy with a view to heading right towards Creag a’ Chalamain and the Lairig Ghru for a change of scenery, the sun on the plateau caught our eye and we hung a left instead, taking an impromtu trip out to Bynack Mor.

I won’t bore you with the details, but it was glorious.

A long grind up to the plateau, then kicking steps through the snow at the base of the ridge, as best you can in running shoes, then clambering up through the boulders feeling like Hermann Buhl. We paused briefly to take in the view. Oh look, you can see the Cromdales from here.

And back down to home

And then down again, skipping across the rocks, hopping on and off the snow, glissading down the last 100 metres to the platea, before the open-strided joy of the long grind reversed, legs going faster and faster, gliding over the drainage ditches, trying not to think about how much skin you’ll lose if you catch a toe.

The kind of fast running that feels completely effortless until you stop at the bottom and realise you’re a little bit buggered.

It’s a long jog out from Bynack Stables to the cars at the Hayfield but it didn’t drag. The power of company and the feeling, for the first time in months, that I’d actually been somewhere.

It was a wonderful reminder that hill running can be fun. Not the type-2 in-hindsight fun that ultra wankers are so proud of, but actual fun. The kind of fun that children have in playparks.

It’s possible, maybe likely, probably inevitable, that much of what I write on here this year will be moaning about the extended athletic decline that I feel I’ve been in for the last couple of years.

Days like yesterday leave me feeling uncharacteristically optimistic. Not that I’ll turn things around and become a superstar, just that even if all I ever have to show for my running is a series of impressively gutsy death march ultra finishes, there will still be enough days like yesterday to make the hours in the Cromdales worthwhile.

The post Hill running can be fun appeared first on Fast Running.

Scotland has named a team of six athletes to represent the nation at the inaugural Commonwealth Half Marathon Championships in Cardiff on Sunday, October 7.

Following the announcements from England and the hosts Wales, Scottish Athletics revealed it’s two teams of three athletes, with British 5000m champion, Steph Twell, stepping up in distance to lead the women’s trio.

Twell hasn’t raced the half marathon distance for a number of years, but after a fine track season, that included appearances in the 5000m final at Gold Coast 2018 and the European Championships, should be well capable for the challenge ahead.

Joining Twell in the Scotland selection are Fiona Brian of Metro Aberdeen and Annabel Simpson of Fife AC.

The Scotland men’s team has a strong North district presence with Kenny Wilson of Moray Road Runners and John Newsom of Inverness Harriers. They will be joined by Mike Crawley – the Corstorphine AAC athlete who has raced for Great Britain over 50K.

The event currently holds an IAAF Silver Label. The route for the race is near identical to the one used for the IAAF/Cardiff University World Half Marathon Championships in 2016. On that day several national records were set for both half marathon and 15km.

The race route is flat, fast and currently holds the British All-Comers Record for women set at 65.52. In addition to the individual championship races, the first three finishers for each team shall score. The team results shall be decided by the aggregate of times recorded by the athletes of each team.

The championships will be incorporated into the Cardiff University Cardiff Half Marathon on Sunday 7 October at 10am.

RELATED: England name team for Commonwealth half marathon

RELATED: Dewi Griffiths among Wales Commonwealth team

Are you a fan of Fast Running? Then please support us and become a patreon. For as little as the price of a monthly magazine you can support Fast Running – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.

The post Scotland name team for Commonwealth half marathon appeared first on Fast Running.

The event, organised by Michael Wright and a team from Central AC, wants to help boost distance running in Scotland.

The mile is an event cemented in running history, still very popular in the US, but under represented in the UK in recent years. It was 18 months ago that Wright and another Central AC club member set the wheels in motion on the idea.

“We’ve had fantastic athletes like Andy Butchart coming through the club in recent years and we wanted to do something to help promote other such runners coming through too” said the Central AC man. “We’ve got a decent price structure too. £100 a piece for the men’s and women’s elite races but additional cash for fast times”.

“Any man in the elite race running under 4:05 or woman running sub 4:40 gets access to an additional £400 prize fund, so it’s £1000 in total for those two races. If just the winner is the only one under those times then they will get £500 each, if there are more under the time barrier then the additional fund is split.”

As we spoke Wright was getting the gazebo set up and University of Stirling were having the track cleaned for the first race at their venue. It’s great to see a sporting university like Stirling getting behind grass roots events like the Monument Mile.

Race 12: Elite Women

The elite races are lining up to be competitive too. The women’s field has reigning Scottish National XC champ Mhairi MacLennan who will be looking to turn early season cross country success into a victory over the mile tonight. The Inverness Harrier ran a 10k PB of 33:28 at the Night of the 10,000m PBs recently.

Steph Pennycook of Fife AC was second behind MacLennan at the XC but has a much faster PB of 4:15 over 1500m and will possibly be looking for revenge on the track. Jenny Selman, also of Fife AC, has a 1500m PB of 4:20 and will be hot on the heels of her club mate.

There isn’t a pacemaker in the women’s race as no pace was requested so it may play out differently to the men’s event with a more tactical event, but this may change with the prizes for fast times on offer.

Race 13: Elite Men

Ben Greenwood of Perth Strathtay Harriers will be following behind Central AC’s pacemaker who has been asked to pace 2:30 for the first kilometre in the hope of seeing a sub 4 minute mile. The Scottish International has already run a blistering 3:48 1500 season opener at Stratford and the U23 athlete will be gunning for the win.

Central’s Jamie Crowe, currently on a scholarship with Lamar University in Texas, has made big inroads since going stateside in Autumn 2017, including a 14:06 5k in March and a 29:39 10k in April.

The fastest 1500m PB in the race belongs to Central AC’s Alistair Hay, who ran for Scotland at the Commonwealth Games in Doha in 2010. Although not as fast as that currently, the mile is a tough race physically and mentally. Could this play into Hay’s hands?

Dale Colley, another Central AC athlete, is Scotland’s reigning 1500m champion from 2017 and has a 3:48 1500m PB that certainly can’t be ignored. It’s the same PB as Greenwood, but with the former being a 800m specialist might a strong finish come into it or will the mile distance play into the hands of others?

There is a host of talented athletes toeing the line in both the mens and females elite fields, as well as the 11 other races. Juniors taking on their first mile event can then watch those inspirational figures taking the field afterwards first hand.

Hats off to Michael Wright, Central AC and the University of Stirling for putting on an event to help develop Scottish and British distance running in years to come. Whilst Hawkins, Muir, Butchart and McColgan lead the current charge, the next generation won’t be far behind.

Full race information and start lists can be found on the Scottish Athletics website.

The post Monument Mile Classic bringing Scottish distance talent together appeared first on Fast Running.