An experiment in "fast and light"

[jmarkb]

I wanted to see what it was like to try a mixed walking/running day in the hills. I'm an occasional and slow runner, and there's no way I could run the whole of the Pentland Skyline round: my legs are normally jelly after about an hour. The plan was to wear running shoes, take a light sack, walk the uphills and run the downhills. This worked out pretty much OK: felt good on the uphill sections and the running was fine until the last long descent off Turnhouse hill which started to hurt quite a bit!

Lessons learnt:

• It was fun! Really enjoyed the ability to move faster than usual.
• I still took too much kit for a sunny day with a good forecast, including way too much food: I only ate one sandwich.
• I need to get better at running with a sack on.
• My running shoes aren't as comfy as I thought they were.
• I couldn't do a second day back to back: I'm pretty sore today.

Sorry, no photos: the camera go left out for being too heavy.

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[laconic surf]

Just shows you how much ascent you can get done in the Pentlands if you go looking in the right places. Ashamed to say I haven't been back since I did East Cairn Hill to Scald Law circuit last year - I'm still having nightmares about my return route

[jmarkb]

Just shows you how much ascent you can get done in the Pentlands if you go looking in the right places. Ashamed to say I haven't been back since I did East Cairn Hill to Scald Law circuit last year - I'm still having nightmares about my return route

...and how much rough pathless ground you can find too! Read your report and I think I'll give that one a miss.....

The official Pentlands Skyline race route ( http://www.carnethy.com/downloads/skyline_map.pdf ) adds an extra 300m of ascent by starting and finishing at Hillend and doing Allermuir and Caerketton twice. Seems illogical to me, but then that's hill runners for you! Winning time is usually under 2 hours 30 mins

If you are travelling by car, then starting and finishing at Flotterstone, and doing Castlelaw instead of Caerketton is probably the best option.

[gmr82]

[*]It was fun! Really enjoyed the ability to move faster than usual.

Hi jmarkb

Glad you enjoyed it. I've started hill running myself in the last month or so and can really echo the above. I can drive to hillend after work, run to allermuir and back, drive home all and still have plenty of the evening left. Its actually led to me using only trail shoes for the first time out walking (Drumochter yesterday). It felt great being so light on the feet. Admittedly I'll only do this in summer and when underfoot is good but I'll do this as much as I can from now.

[jmarkb]

Admittedly I'll only do this in summer and when underfoot is good but I'll do this as much as I can from now.

I'll think I'll have to give this a go too, though I need some new shoes first!

Pentlands are great for an evening run: just the right sort of size and steepness (well for me anyway!), good terrain, and lots of different route options.