The Bob Graham Round

Completed 7th May 2023 in 21 hours and 31 minutes

by Jonny Kilpatrick

Why did I find myself at 9:29pm on Saturday the 6th of May 2023 at Moot Hall in Keswick about to run/walk/hobble my way over 67 miles, 42 summits and 26000ft of Lake District Fells? That I don’t really know how to answer, but I’m so glad that I did!

My Bob Graham Round (BGR) notion maybe started a few years back when I’d read Richard Askwith’s excellent book, “Feet in the Clouds”, which described his own journey to a Bob Graham Round and the rich fell running culture in the English Lake District. In true form, I of course read the book, bought the maps, bought more books and bought some kit but then did nothing about it for a further 3 years. During this time I’d torn the Meniscus in my knee on the hills in Scotland and had spent an entire running season just rebuilding. In July 2022 we took our campervan for a trip to the Italian Dolomites. Here I was in the midst of some of the most incredible mountains I’d ever seen and I realised my knee wasn’t just better, it was better than it had felt in the previous 10 years and I was able to hike up and run down these hills daily with no injury issues. Right off the back of that I knew I needed to keep this momentum going and feed my craving to be back in the hills. I’m fairly sure on the way back from that holiday I said to my wife Mariam I’d be looking at doing a Bob Graham Round sometime the next year. As usual, Mariam was fully supportive and excited about the idea also realising this could take us back down to the lakes and the mountains all through the next number of months, which we love.

Having done a few 20+ hour ultra trail races, I knew I had good experience for the duration of a BGR but I was both mildly concerned but mostly enthusiastic about the training requirements of all the hill training I’d need to do. I also had signed up to do a repeat of the Lakeland 100 in July 2023 which would be my “A” goal for the year so I couldn’t afford to have the BGR tank my whole season. This could be a risky game to try and do well in two of the biggest running endurance challenges in the UK within a few months of each other. I spent the rest of 2022 just getting as much hill training in as I could on the weekends under my own guidance, but reconnected with my long term coach, Neil MacNicol, of RunRecover at the start of 2023. Neil is a 4 time veteran of the Lakeland 100 with 3 top-5 finishes and a massive interest himself in the BGR so he was the perfect fit for this!

Training from January to May went off without a hitch. Neil’s plan had me hitting a consistent 10000ft a week with plenty of sessions that really kept our hand in for the Lakeland 100 training. No session was missed and no injuries came in the whole block. As much as I looked at the plan some weeks and felt it could be beyond me, it happened and it worked brilliantly. I’d never been fitter than I was standing on those steps at Moot Hall in Keswick about to start my Bob Graham. My plan for the BGR was not to race it however; I was just hoping to have a great experience with friends in the hills in one if my favourite areas, while using the BGR as a practice run for my Lakeland 100 pacing, fuelling and general race management. I couldn’t afford a big layoff due to fatigue or injury. I chose a 21 hour schedule as this seemed to fit with that best in my current condition.

Before the attempt I’d been round the route twice to iron out my route choices and pacing. My kit had been well tried and tested as well as my nutritional strategy. Since January I’d ran 1000 miles in training with 175,000ft of elevation with probably about the same again in the second half of 2022. I was settled on my route going clockwise where I’d mostly follow the gpx trace of Jack Kuenzle, the American runner who’d set the outrageously fast BGR record time of 12 hours and 23 minutes. I’d deviate from this route twice on my effort. On descending Blencathra via Doddick Fell, I felt the more cruisy, albeit slightly longer descent early in the round was preferable in the dark than the scrambly route off Halls Fell Ridge where the line I’d need to take was much more important. Scafell would also be summited via the Lords Rake and West Wall Traverse rather than the low grade rock climb up Broad stand. I’d decided on a 9:30pm start on the Saturday evening of King Charles’ Coronation weekend mainly to be family and support crew friendly. I really wanted to have my daughter Aria enjoy the start and the end of the effort with me and it would just be easier for my support crew not to drag them all into two disrupted night’s sleep.

The Round

Support crew before the start

After a long few days of rest impatiently waiting to go where I was suffering all the phantom niggles you get with ‘taper-itis’, the time had come and we landed into the car park in Keswick at 9pm. Just prior to my start time of 9:30pm, my leg 1 support runner Alwyn, who had us all in a mild panic having not appeared yet, made his “fashionable” appearence at Moot Hall about 3 minutes before the start. Fair to say, I thought he was joking on our message thread suggesting that he’d be wearing his Coronation shorts! Not that any of us knew what that actually meant at the time.

Lets get ready to rumble

Leg 1 Keswick - Threlkeld

I had my planned my BGR for this weekend as it was a good 12 weeks ahead of the Lakeland 100 and was a full moon, where I’d hoped to benefit from the extra light on the night section. How wrong was I! On the ascent of Skiddaw literally the only view I had due to the dense clag and rain was the illuminated close up of Alwyn’s Union Jack arse and extras, as I’d instructed him to get ahead of me and block me into walking rather than white knuckling it up Skiddaw.

A picture is worth 1000 words……..

Neil rightly had me well instructed that excitement at early gains would be regretted later on which was definitely something I’d experienced in my last 2 long ultras. Regardless of the diabolical visibility, we had no navigation issues at all and even made better progress than in my most recent recce over the horrible boggy section over Great Calva to Blencathra. Alwyn was great company and having someone to chat with really relaxed me and settled me into the effort. Coming off Blencathra, I accidently took us down onto Doddick Fell a little too early before the 2nd set of zig zags which involved a fairly steep but short off track traverse. Once on Doddick though, it was cruisy down to Threlkeld where Stevie was waiting at Road support.

Up to Blencathra summit

Leg 2 Threlkeld - Dunmail Raise

We arrived into Threlkeld just slightly up on schedule by about 8 minutes. I took slightly longer here than the 3 minutes on my schedule as I wanted to make sure to change socks and reapply the trench foot cream I was hoping would stave off the dreaded trenchfoot that had plagued my Lakeland 100 in 2019. Leg 2 which was the Helvellyn Ridge, I had made the call to do solo as I didn’t want to take the risk that Stevie’s recently injured ankle would flare up and we’d get seperated in the poor visibility. Far from the full moon nicely illuminating the ridge (which I consider to be the most runnable section of the round), the visibility due to the dense clag was easily the worst I’ve ever been on a hill in. I made good time up the really steep climb to Clough head and was still 6 minutes up on schedule at the top which was a suprise. From this point on though, I missed just about every trod or path and could barely see my own feet with no concept of going up or downhill unless it was REALLY up or down. Finding the various cairns and even the Helvellyn trig proved almost impossible at first sweep. I was turning back, circling, walking when I shouldn’t have been and even slipped off a verge I was running on when my foot just totally missed solid ground. This I knew would be the crux of my entire round. I couldn’t afford to panic and push too hard as the conditions made that quite dangerous and I really couldn’t do much about the pace as I basically needed to walk using my watch or more accurately zoomed in OS maps on the phone to find these little piles of rocks that sometimes aren’t even that obvious during the day. I think with hindsight, with most of my big hill days in training being solo where I was used to navigating by myself, this really helped me during this little crisis within the round. My strava feed did however look like a flipping spirograph around some of these summits.

To be honest though, it really wouldn’t have made much difference to have support on this leg for navigation sake and in the conditions I’d have still carried a pack full of safety gear. Stevie as agreed, did however come up to meet me at the summit of Dollywagon Pike. Boy was I glad to see his head torch when I did, as I knew at that point clag was behind me on the main body of the ridge. We even had a sighting of that beautiful bright big full moon that could have been oh so helpful in different conditions! From this point on, we made great time with the descent of Dollywagon and steep out and back to Fairfield where it was just turning light. Seat Sandal came and went quickly and we were descending to the Dunmail Raise support point to meet Saki and Paul. Just on a final note for leg 2, I hadn’t noticed in training, but the descent of Seat Sandal is deceptively long and steep enough to require more quads activity than you’d like. It isn’t much of a climb up to the summit from Grizedale Tarn but the descent feel is much longer down to the road at Dunmail Raise . If I were to do a recce again, I would definitely do this descent and just link straight onto the steep climb of Steel Fell to just familiarise that. The road crossing point here for most people won’t be a long pause at all being so early in the round.

Dunmail Raise with Stevie and Saki

Leg 3 Dunmail Raise - Wasdale

Starting leg 3, I was now 30 minutes down on schedule having lost a good 40 minutes wandering around the ridge! I was however feeling really good as fuelling had been consistent with 60-70g carbs per hour and my legs were feeling great now that all the phantom niggles in my right knee and left foot on leg 1 and 2 were out of my mind. I also knew the worst of it was now behind me and I’d overcome a night on my own and touched each summit in very trying conditions. The rest of this would have much better visibility and my support runners would now also be able to help with navigation to give me a mental switch-off at times.

Steel Fell came and went pretty quickly as Saki and I were just catching up on various goings on in our lives and talking about our various running plans and experiences. Saki had a great year in 2022 finishing a close 2nd place in the West Highland Way race and completing the Tor de Geants. Leg 3 is very similar with its muddy and boggy terrain for the first 2 hours of it to running in the local Campsie Hills. Neither of us had any issues and just coasted along admiring the brilliant sunrise where we were treated to a beautiful cloud inversion and quite a bit of warmth from the sun when out of the mist.

I was slightly concerned that at 0700 it was hot and humid and wondered briefly how the afternoon leg 4 would feel high up on the ridge if the sun was to get at us unimpeded. Good progress was made and I really enjoyed catching up with Saki, while ticking off the various prominences of the Langdale Pikes. I had forewarned Saki we were in for a grind up Bowfell - and to be fair it didn’t disappoint! Looking back however, this was a little faster than I’d done Bowfell either time in training, so I guess we got our traverse line right and we both just dug in well when we needed to. As expected, from Bowfell right over to Scafell Pike it was a case of trying to bumble our way over the unrelenting rocky surfaces while not losing too much time, but equally keeping our ankles and shins intact. This bit is quite frustating on tiring legs as it just looks so runnable, but there’s so much proprioception and momentum needed to keep a pace. As it was approaching mid morning, we now started bumping into other groups doing BGR recce’s which was really nice. Everyone I’ve met doing BGR recce runs through the entire training block have been absolutely great people and I’ve just found them all to be very enthusiastic and kind in offering help or supplies or route advice if needed.

Having bagged Scafell Pike (England’s Highest peak) which was completely mobbed as usual, I was buzzing to go through my favourite bit of the entire route. I think Scafell (not the same as Scafell Pike) is a brilliant mountain and the Lords Rake and West Wall Traverse is such an immersive and steep route right through the belly of the hill. From Scafell Pike summit I took off and found some pace again in my legs over Mickledore and down to the Lords Rake. I think I remember Saki (who’s a Mountain Leader by profession) seeing the Lords Rake and saying “oh wow that’s very like the Cuillins on Skye”. For context it’s a very steep, narrow gully that’s full of scree. I haven’t done much of the ridge on Skye but that certainly encourages me to get up there again. We ground our way up the Lords Rake and branched off onto the West Wall Traverse where I was glad to be able to show three other runners that bit of the route as they weren’t aware of it. They said afterwards they’d likely use it on their rounds rather than continuing up the Lords Rake and having to drop height again before the summit push. I was pleased to do my bit and give a little back as one of them had filled my water bottle about 3 miles earlier. We popped out of the West Wall Traverse right at the summit plateau and after touching the top, we were on our way down the long descent from 3200ft back down to the car park where my support crew would be at about 200ft. This is such a great descent with loads of scree running, which I love, so I had to really curtail my impulse to kick on and batter it down. Turns out we’d made great time on leg 3 and clawed a few minutes back from that lost on leg 2 without us thinking about that. Saki had been brilliant on the leg where she’d reminded me to eat and drink numerous times and was just easy-going company while working our way over the most difficult leg of the round.

Leg 4 Wasdale - Honister Pass

Meeting up with the support crew at Wasdale was a brilliant morale boost and it was great to hear my daughter Aria ringing the cowbell before I’d even arrived. I think my poor wife Mariam had been up half the night checking the tracker and with the morning fog they’d had a horrible drive into Wasdale. This check point would see me change socks again, reapply the Trench foot cream and freshen up with a new t-shirt. As I was getting myself sorted, both Neil and Scott subtly suggested that no matter how I feel, I should really be seen to make an effort with the mashed potato and gravy that Mariam had lovingly prepared for me on my request. I’m still not quite sure how she did that with just a jetboil, but little did we have to worry as this hungry Irishman hoovered the bowl of potatoes down in record time and had even some sort of whinge about why there wasn’t any more.

Best potatoes ever!

Leg 4 support runners Paul and Neil

Off we went on leg 4, Neil, Paul and I into the Yewbarrow climb. Wasdale is known as the Bob Graham graveyard because so many efforts end here due to the huge descent of Scafell into the outrageously steep and long ascent of Yewbarrow and then Red Pike back up to the roof of the Lakes. I was aware this climb would be unrelenting and adopted the one foot in front of the other approach with absolutely no consideration of stopping to rest. It was slow but consistent and the chat with my new support runners Neil and Paul passed it quickly. Having this pair on the start of leg 4 was great as they’re both so accomplished themselves where Paul has a sub-20 hour Ramsey Round and stupidly quick Tranters Round and of course, Neil is my coach. He’s also someone I’ve always felt would take on board any of your excuses with a stern look, rather than words that may not have you feeling good that you let that out of your head. We had both invested quite a bit in this BGR and I certainly wanted to keep up my end of the bargain and have a good section where we maintained the schedule. Paul stuck with us until Red Pike where he had to descend to keep his legs fresh for his own race next week. Neil and I pushed on over to Steeple and along the rocky high route of Pillar, Kirkfell and Great Gable. We made pretty steady time and I think on the whole we were fortunate with the weather to have clag that blocked the sun but not our ability to navigate, and the temperature was again comfortable for just t-shirt and shorts.

Traverse to the Red Pike climb

My nutrition had started to falter a bit as inevitably I’d sickened myself a little of all the sweet stuff with the gels and bars I’d scoffed to that point. Unfortunately or Fortunately for me, Neil was under strict instruction from me to make sure eating happened on leg 4. Maybe I’ve exaggerated this in my mind, but from Pillar to Gable I’m pretty sure he had me in a headlock just squeezing gel after gel down my neck until I completely tapped out of the food. Fair play to him though, as I’m really not sure I’d have got up that absolutely stinking line on Great Gable that he decided to follow from Jack’s record round that cuts out the Zig Zags. So steep and silly in fact, that we totally missed poor Stevie who’d came over from Honister and was waiting to give us resupplies of water. Between that and the usual tedious and awkward descent off Great Gable, I was quite happy the round was in the bag by the time I was at Windy Gap heading up to Green Gable. I did tell Neil however that it’d be a long while before I set foot on Great Gable again. Brandreth ticked off and what we see in the distance could really only be one thing; Alwyn had decided to get his moneys worth from his coronation shorts and was once again out getting bikini-type tan lines over by the final summit of the round, Grey Knotts. I really like the descent into Honister and I have to say, it was still enjoyable on the round and significantly better following Alwyn, this time, where I was uphill from him rather than downhill and at eye level like on leg 1.

Grey Knotts summit

Leg 5 Honister - Keswick

A quick transition at Honister where I just dropped all kit and just had my wife Mariam take me a water bottle and we were off up the last long climb of the round to Dale Head. It was lovely to be able to do this last leg with Mariam. She has been an absolute legend of a wife helping me train and organise this whole thing. I could think of no one I’d rather have on the glory leg. Unfortunately for poor Mariam, not long into the climb up Dale Head she suggested I should eat and take a gel and I think this triggered a bit of leg 4 PTSD from my experiences with Neil ‘the feeder’ MacNicol, so she got a rather out of character and snappy response about how I didn’t want any!

Super crew of Scott and Mariam at Honister

Dale Head summit

 On our way up Hindscarth the next summit of the round, Mariam noticed that Stevie was running us down to complete the leg with us. Turns out he hoofed it back from Gable realising he’d missed us and had landed into Honister to see us half way up Dale Head. Neil suggested he could catch us up if he left immediately and against every fibre of his being, he didn’t want to incur a look of disappointment from Neil or the other support crew, so off he went. Jokes aside, it was a brilliant surprise and I was delighted to have Stevie on board as he’d really been the main man of the crew for my night section which was so critical to to our success, so it was only right he got some of the glory leg action too! Slow and steady progress and we had Robinson the last summit of the 42 complete. At this point the skies were completely clear and sun was blazing. The views across to Grizedale Pike and over to the Newlands Valleys were just stunning.

Robinson - final summit number 42

On the descent of Robinson, Mariam was left rather unamused when I hung a sharp right off the bottom of the crags and descended a very long and direct scree route that Jack had used on his round. I’m not sure she was entirely happy with my justification to leave a perfectly good runnable ridge path being that, “sure this just gets the last of the descending done quicker and then it’s just a short run to Keswick on the road”. A change of shoes at Newlands to my super foam bright pink, carbon plated Saucony Edge Trail shoes - which I’d have no choice but to produce epicness in, and we were off. Stevie once again, got gazumpted out of his lift back here when Mariam suggested she didn’t know the way and he’d need to come incase Jonny’s watch dies. To my great surprise my legs worked just fine for road running and we made great progress into Keswick at 7-8 min/miles, even beating the car support back by a few seconds to Moot Hall where they emerged from the car park lane to see me already lapping up the only applause I could get from the top of the steps. This which just happened to be a large group of drinkers at the pub just down the high street - but I took it!

Enjoying the finish with the girls and Stevie on top of the steps

21 hours and 31 minutes it took and I’m being honest when I say that it was thoroughly enjoyable and I’ve loved the experience so much! A few days later while writing this, I’m pleasantly surprised to find myself feeling reasonably well recovered and very content with the buzz of a job well done. I know when I was researching the BGR, I was constantly reading accounts of rounds and trying to find information that could help put me at ease over the whole thing. I’m going to bullet point a few bits of advice below that I think are important for a Bob Graham Round effort.

Enjoying catching up again with Aria in Keswick the next day

Lastly I just cannot thank my support crew enough. Living in Glasgow it was such a huge ask to have people coming down for a whole weekend to the Lakes to support my effort. You guys are complete legends and I’m grateful beyond words. I hope the success of our Round will inspire each of you within your own running adventures this year and in the future for which I will happily support you on if needed! This is the beauty of something like the Bob Graham Round and I am confident I will pass all of your time, effort and support forwards to yourselves or others. Thanks guys!

Tips for the Bob Graham Round

• Do the training. The lines are incredibly steep and unrelenting. You really need months of being in the hills on as similar terrain as you can find. Running on hilly, more manicured trails is not the same thing and you will find it incredibly difficult to keep your leg turnover on the rocks and tussock without training on it.

• Recce the route at least once. I did twice, but I still regret just doing recces as individual legs. If I was doing this again, I would make sure on recce that I ran through every road crossing and up the next climb or two as this would give me the appreciation of how this would feel on the day. There are a few huge descents into the very steep ascents from the crossings.

• Look after your feet on this challenge. Your feet may very well be wet for the better part of a day and in that instance it is highly likely you could suffer foot issues such as Trenchfoot, blisters or other pain such as damaged toes. Moisturise your feet months and weeks in advance to have them well hydrated so the water gradient for absorption into your foot is less. On the day treat the feet with some form of barrier type cream and take the time to change your socks and reapply if needed. Generally just have looked after your feet in advance such as keeping calluses to a minimum and noticing when your shoes or socks give you issues and iron this out in training. With your kit, have shoes, packs and clothing that you’ve tried and tested. I wore the La Sportiva Cyklon which I felt worked amazingly well on this route gripping to everything from eroded steep muddy track to doing well on wet rock. My packs were the Montane Gecko 5 and 12 where I was able to have prepacked packs that my support could just quickly hand me to swap over to at road support depending on what I needed on the section. The poles I used were the Black Diamond Distance Z and the headtorch was the Black Diamond Icon 700 which lasted the full night on full power of 700 lumens. I rehersed with all my kit for months in advance and had full confidence on the day that my equipment would not be my issue.

• This is a really difficult challenge to organise adequate support for. I was content I could carry my own stuff and if needed to do legs on my own, so I trained to do this. It was significantly better to not have a pack on while on leg 5 so if you feel you will be tight to the 24 hour mark on the round, I would strongly suggest getting involved in the BGR community and helping on other rounds and try to get yourself 2 support crew per leg to carry your stuff and help navigate.

• Poles make a massive difference in training and on the round. I trained for 8 months every weekend with poles even though I didn’t use them beforehand. They became like extensions of my arms that saved me so many times from falls and likely an injury somewhere. They helped with keeping an uphill rhythm too and I think this kept my uphill climbing consistent all day. They also keep your back set better and this was something that really didn’t bother me on the day.

• Practice your BGR nutrition in training, exactly like you plan to use it on the day! You will largely avoid a bad stomach on the day and minimise energy bonks. This could be the difference in you getting out of Wasdale or not, let alone achieving the time you want.

• The weather is a massive factor on the Bob Graham. High winds will really slow you down. Saturation underfoot and slicked up rocks will also slow you down. Take this into account when planning your effort and support crew. On my round if the clag remained as bad as it was on leg 2 I would have called it a day at Wasdale without a doubt. There would have been no point doing a whole round with my nose inches from my watch, let alone the danger I would have exposed myself and support runners to. It also would have added hours to the effort.

• Do the route choices that are right for you. You will see most faster rounds go certain ways. That’s optimal for accomplished world-class hill runners with a world class support crew taking them perfect lines in dry conditions. The rock are slippy when wet and for me personally I enjoyed descending Doddick on Blencathra instead of Halls Fell which I found a little awkward in the wet during training. Similarly ascending Lords Rake and West Wall Travserse on Scafell rather than Broad Stand was simply a safety decision as I’m not an accomplished climber so adding a few minutes for that sake wasn’t a big deal to me and I enjoyed the route. I would guess I added 10-15 minutes maximum to my round but was safer and actually loved both routes.

• Practice some of the legs in poor visibility and become proficient with how you plan to navigate whether it be watch, phone or map and compass. Do not entirely rely on your support crew for this! They will help on the day but you need to be able to mentally be comfortable in uncomfortable conditions as weather will likely throw you some sort of curve ball at some stage in your round. You are spending a full day in the mountains in the UK so expect the forecast is not set in stone no matter how certain it seems.

• The round itself is just a big and enjoyable day in the hills with your friends. Train yourself well enough that you can enjoy this side of it and don’t spend the whole time fretting over your schedule being up or down 10-15 minutes. If you are well trained and on the day you are on point with nutrition, you will likely do well at the end and make time up relative to the average finisher.

• Everyone will have their own round experiences and it will be genuinely difficult to compare times from one to another as the circumstances and underfoot conditions are so different from one week to the next. I really hope me saying I used the Bob Graham Round as a big training day doesn’t get taken out of context. I found it physically demanding and I genuinely don’t know how much faster I could have went if it was the main goal of my running season this year. Pushing at your maximum over such a long challenge itself comes with risks such as stomach issues, injury and just totally blowing up. I am delighted with my time and even more delighted that I had such a positive experience in the hills and have came out of this with a deeper affinity to everyone who helped. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt like that after a race, so on that basis I’d really encourage anyone reading this to back themselves, prepare well and have a go. As Mark Webber the Formula 1 driver once said “Average is easy, that’s why it’s so popular!”. This is not an average challenge or experience and I assure you that you will experience something that cannot be replicated easily and you will feel it was absolutely worthwhile!

A Winter Walloping of the West Highland Way

On 18th December 2021 one of our owners and Sports Physiotherapist Jonny Kilpatrick ran the West Highland Way , in a day, North to South on the weekend closest to the winter solstice. Here is his account of it.

“I’m thinking of running the West Highland Way from North to South on the weekend closest to the winter solstice this year Mariam”, I said to my wife in August. A brief pause and “Okay, that sounds a good challenge” came back at me, which completely sums up how well supported I am by Mariam and my daughter Aria to do the hobbies I love.

This certainly hadn’t been something I’d ever really thought about but the seed got planted after watching Mariam pull off an epic effort herself running the West Highland Way in June. After 2 years of staying fit and being disappointed the pandemic had cancelled the race twice for her she did the route independently and pulled off one of the most nail biting and gritty finishes I’ve ever seen to finish 2 minutes inside her target of Sub-24 hours. It was brilliant and I think everyone who was involved, including myself left that day feeling quite inspired! When I feel inspired, I need to do something about it!

I’ve ran the West Highland Way as part of the race in June 2018 so I knew the route really well and have since developed as a runner so I felt a more ambitious goal of trying to beat my previous time of 20 hours and 46 minutes but in winter with the least daylight hours possible was achievable. That would work out to be a whole 7 hours daylight to use as well as the total unknown of how severe or relatively kind the weather would be. I’d also had a really disrupted year of running with an injury to the Meniscus in my right knee earlier in year leaving me with a lack of mileage this year but a massive motivation to pull something out late in the year and feel like I still achieved in my running during 2021.

So we have the Why of this challenge, now for the How!

I found myself more motivated than I’ve ever been in planning for this, maybe appreciating I could run again after the knee or just the way the world has generally been this last 2 years in the pandemic where my work as an owner in a Sports Physio Clinic has really took over a little more of my time than I’d ever wanted. Whatever it was, I hit my training like never before with an intensity and goal that I wouldn’t be compromising on. Incidentally, and some may laugh; this was the first time since I began running back in 2017 that I actually thought about myself as a runner and that doing well in it would be important to me. Previously with the many races I’ve done in the last few years Including some fairly chunky ones such as the Lakeland 100 in 2019 or the triple crown of West Highland Way races in 2018 I was really just approaching it as a big challenge and trying not to F**k it. I even found myself brave enough this training cycle to run in leggings minus the over shorts, although numerous corners of my social circle have not so subtly suggested I don’t!

I dredged up my old WHW plans by Neil MacNicol of RunRecover from 2018 and decided I’d just be doing a 12 week block of that with some additional rehab type strengthening a few times a week for my duff knee. I’d been training myself for a year or so prior to this and I’d forgot just how good Neil’s plans were with the variety and intensity. In hindsight on my own, I had fallen into a habit of making training harder and more grinding in terms of the terrain, but this was definitely not going to help on this challenge and I’m not sure it’s done that much to progress my running in the last year or two.

Training went brilliantly and I knew by 6 weeks into the block that I was on course to be in the best shape of my life, if not already in it. I even did all my rehab and didn’t adjust the plan whatsoever which resulted in not one single training niggle except for the right knee which I was happy to deal with myself through a regular battery of dry needling, massage and strengthening.  In the planning of this I’d also decided that I really wanted to enjoy the whole day and opted against going totally unsupported as I know some people do on these efforts. Instead, I arranged a hit squad of local Scottish runners I’m friendly with all of whom I consider to be better runners than myself to accompany me on various sections and just keep me engaged with it all. The respect I had for each of these runners I was sure would completely prevent me showing myself up with any melodrama on the day and just keep that mental pressure on me for the target I’d told them all I wanted to achieve. You can’t hit a target you can’t see, right? I provided them all a 20 hour schedule to make sure they would all keep me moving to it.

Finally on preparation, I can’t thank Mariam enough for shelving her own big training runs and time on the trail on the weekends to facilitate mine. We’ve realised in the last year or thereabouts that with Aria being 4.5 years old it’s just not right to have both of us attempting big runs at the same times in the year.

So how’d it go?

I’m really pleased to report that I managed to beat my target time by 21 minutes and finished in Milngavie in 20 hours 25 minutes and 59 secs. The Kilpatrick’s do like the dramatic sprint (hobble) finish and on the day for some reason I’d convinced myself I was chasing a finish time of 0128 making for a nerve wracking last few miles! Not the first time my glycogen depleted brain on these long runs has let me down in the old maths department. The run actually went really well and I thoroughly enjoyed myself throughout it with great company and stunning winter weather. I’m told this is could be a Fastest Known Time in Winter for a supported West Highland Way effort North to South. That remains to be seen but if it is then that’s a nice bonus and certainly sets an achievable target for people to have a crack at next year!

If you’re still with me at this stage what follows is my blow by blow account of the effort and of course loads of profound insights into what went well and what should have went a little better.

Saturday 18th December 2021

Sore Feet Statue Fort William just before starting

It’s 0459 and I find myself at the Sore Feet Statue that marks the end of the West Highland Way in Fort William about to start what should be about 20 hours of running back home to Glasgow. As you’d expect it’s dark, it’s cold and I’m unsurprisingly the only person on the street. Certainly this is the most low key start to any race I’ve ever done but that was because of the antisocial hours I’d decided to attempt and finish this in based upon maximising my daylight hours on the fast more runnable sections. I’d set a schedule for my supporting crew that would have me through Kinlochleven at 0810 and over to Kingshouse by 1000. Of course everything got a little exciting at the start of this and I’d had far too much caffeine and I ended up in Kinlochleven at 0740 and Kingshouse at 0930. Mariam was a little panicked at my message coming through Kinlochleven as her and Aria were still in bed at the hotel in Fort William. The section went really well to be honest and I think I’d probably overestimated the time needed. I had an initial panic for the first mile running down the street trying to get my headtorch which had been fine in the hotel to actually turn on. Not sure how I did it, but I’d activated the lock button which I was able to suss out with a trusty google search while running, nothing like a drama to settle you into the thing. I decided I would just run the entire hill up from Glen Nevis as it’s pretty flat all along the top and it looked foggy up there so I wanted a little time in the bank. Foggy was an understatement, I’m not sure I could see more than about 1 m in front of the wall of mist and light from my headtorch the whole way over to the Kinlochleven Descent. This strangely I think worked to my favour as I just ran to feel with what was immediately in front of me on fresh legs and I made great progress. It also kept me totally unaware of the creepy sheep and deer eyes that were no doubt planning to scare the crap out of me.

Coming up the long 4 mile hill from Kinlochleven I did show much more restraint and walked the bits that needed it while eating a ton and listening to some angry people in my ears asking me how much I wanted this and telling me not to be a pussy and such! As planned, daylight was in about half way up the climb and the sunrise was just stunning and totally reminded me to take it all in as well. The descent down the Devil‘s Staircase flowed well and I didn’t feel like I sustained any real damage to my quads or sore knee. I just love this bit of the route too as the Buachialle has such a special place in my heart having left some of my Uncle Raymond’s remains at the top and purposely made it Aria’s first Munro, carrying her up there at 5 months of age. Towards the bottom of the staircase, I came across Lorne and his partner Lorraine taking pictures so of course I popped out some completely unreflectively fast descending just to give Lorne a wee panic about supporting me for the next 31 miles from Kingshouse down to Beinglas. Not sure how wise that was 20 miles later when I was chasing Lorne without him ever looking back!

Coming up the path from Kinlochleven as light starts to turn

Beautiful sunrise looking back down to Kinlochleven

Buachialle Etive Mor taking some early morning light

My girls waiting at Kingshouse

A quick checkpoint at Kingshouse where it was lovely to see Mariam and Aria’s smiles and support, then Lorne and I headed off towards Glencoe. He kept running and I kept following thinking the whole way up the hill towards the Rannoch Moor from the Ski centre if I would have actually ran all this on my own. I concluded I probably would and I did say to him to drag me through the hours of daylight down to Beinglas in good time to get a little of the Lochside in during the last light. Lorne actually was brilliant company having done the first 22 miles myself and we made great time over the moor with lovely winterised sunkissed hills to our right and eventually the big hills at Orchy in front. What else would you rather be doing with a Saturday morning in winter Jonny? It was fairly cold but with the temperature inversion it was noticeable that the valleys were the coldest and we warmed the higher we went. Not a lick of wind or rain forecast would be a major factor on my side today.

Another quick pitstop with the girls out the front of the Inveroran Hotel and we were off up Jelly Baby Hill en route to Bridge of Orchy. My legs were still working great on the climb and descent and I was taking in calories and caffeine no problem. Through Orchy and on our way up to Tyndrum was the first time I actually started to feel a little fatigue creeping into the legs on the uphills, nothing major but I did think I’ll need to be sensible with walking the appropriate inclines and not toughing them out. The views on this section are some of my favourite from the whole route, it’s just a wide open valley with really steeply rising mountains everywhere. It’s well surfaced and not a chore at all to run through even when tiring.

Tyndrum was Baltic when we reached it! I was supposed to eat something more substantial here but opted to get going with just a banana which wasn’t the wisest idea. I’d already slowed up with eating my solid foods because they were all slightly frozen and much more effort than usual to get chewed and swallowed. This would come back to bite me but I felt okay even though I’d deviated from my food plan! I was starting to feel the pace a little with the cumulative mileage so I opted to get the headphones in again and have those rather angry chaps “motivate me”. This did make an immediate difference though and I felt I was able to keep a much better pace behind Lorne through the Crainlarich Rollercoaster! Thankfully the medieval fortress of fallen spruce trees from the storm a few weeks prior had been cut up as it had took Lorne and I a good 5-10 minutes to get through on a training run and it had been in my head how little I was looking forward to being scratched and spiked from every angle climbing through them. As I’d pretty much been reverted to powder and gels for food due to the cold I started to really get some stomach and gut bloating across this section which was hard to keep running our pace through. I knew though there was a proper toilet block at Beinglas so it was just about getting there and I could take a slightly longer check point as I’d been quick through them until now.

Chasing after Lorne towards Crainlarich on a brilliant winters afternoon

We arrived at Beinglas Farm 25 minutes up on the 20 hour schedule I’d given my support crew. Unfortunately I think I took 20 minutes of this at the check point between trying to eat, change clothing/shoes and use the facilities. At this point Mark and Stu rotated into the supporting roles and Lorne bowed out with a job well done. The Lochside was certainly one of the crux points in the planning of this effort. It always is though due to the treacherously slippy and undulating terrain of rocks and roots, with Scotland’s largest Loch ready to swallow you right up with any falls. Hitting it at 55 miles in where you’ve pushed the pace to get ahead of time for the second longer darkness was definitely going to make a difference too. The longer checkpoint had made a positive difference and I was running well to begin the section and thankfully my stomach and guts were being kinder. Unfortunately this was short lived as I just didn’t stomach solids well at all from here and survived really on the odd glass of flat coke, nibble of tablet or a muller rice. I found myself deflecting the efforts of Stu and Mark to suggest I should eat because everytime I drank or ate my stomach was just terrible for the next half hour. Another thing that was immediately apparent was that I shouldn’t have changed my shoes out from the Hoka Speedgoat to the much less protected but more nimble Hoka Torrent. The Speedgoat had been like a bulldozer down the WHW so far with all of its plush cushioning, the torrent though I could feel every tiny rock through and I think the slower speed we were going compared to training would totally have accommodated the lack of grip and dexterity of the speedgoat along the lochside.

We were actually making steady progress across the Lochside and I really enjoyed getting a catch up with both Mark and Stu at various bits. Probably so much so that my lack of attention to the trail had me at one stage trip on a root and go down like a trap door, face first into a rock on the ground with no efforts from my arms to help. Luckily cheek bone still intact with a graze and bruise but eyes seeing straight and I was confident I’d swerved an effort ending accident and we could batter on. Once off the much more treacherous and slow ground north of Inversnaid we made some great progress right across onto the low road where I think my lack of training on this bit recently really played on my mind as with the very poor visibility in dark and fog it felt much longer than the 2 miles or so it should be and I was constantly convincing myself the climb up to the forestry was upon us, but wasn’t! The weird thing about running in dark and fog is just how disorientating it can be in terms of what type of gradient you’re actually on. I know the section from the low road to Rowardennan like the back of my hand but it felt like we just couldn’t be on the right path as it looked to be constantly going uphill even though it is clearly downhill. Thankfully I knew we had no where else we could have went wrong so just continued at a decent trot until we saw Neil MacNicol’s headtorch in the distance at the toilet block at Rowardennan at 1900 (14 hours in). Rodger had taken over car duties and I knew it would be good having his experience to draw upon if I needed it for the coming sections.

The next section between Rowardennan and Balmaha was one I was determined not to lose too much time on as it’s a complete rollercoaster of short hills and sections of runnable trail. I’d purposely asked Neil to join here even though Stu and Mark would continue to Drymen. I have a lot of respect for Neil as  a runner and a coach and I knew his calm head and dry sense of humour would help in some darker moments to come. I opted to once again put the headphones in for this section and take an abusive bit of ‘motivation’ on board. The section actually went really well I felt, minus another belly flop that once again I came away from unscathed. We were running (or at least that what it felt like) everything that was flattish and downhill and making really steady uphill walking pace. The various landmarks of the section came and went quickly and I was surprised how quickly we were in Balmaha although for some reason the last hill up and over into Balmaha had kicked the arse clean out of me and I was feeling probably my first proper bonk of the whole effort. This wasn’t aided a whole lot when I got to Rodger’s food station at 2055 (15 hours 55mins) at the foot of Conic Hill and realised Mark and Stu had tanned all my remaining flat coke. All I could do was have a little mental chuckle at that when Rodger asked, “so what do you feel like” to which I replied “the flat coke the lads have just finished off”, he looked a little mortified but I actually found it quite funny.

Off we set up Conic with absolutely no illusions that this would be a cold, slow slog as it’s steep as f**k from the North side and I wasn’t exactly feeling like a mountain goat ready to spring up it. Headphones were taken out which I knew wouldn’t necessarily be optimal but I fancied a chat with the lads now we had a slower pace. There was an incredible temperature inversion and the cloud was so thickly banked all over Loch Lomond below us with a clear sky above. Knowing I couldn’t do a whole lot more at that moment in time than keep the legs moving up I actually quite enjoyed the odd glimpse backwards and thought there’s certainly silver linings to every situation. Not sure how much my freezing cold support runners were enjoying that stunning view by the top having to move at my pace. Over conic and I’d forgot just how trickly the upper 3rd of the southern side is on tired legs for loose rubble, thankfully no more falls.

Conic Hill with Temperature Inversion drawing clouds down low beneath us

It was good to get back onto the more runnable trails back towards Drymen as I could slowly build a little momentum with these tired legs. I’ve always found that towards the 70 mile plus mark of the ultras that you really need to get the momentum going on flatter ground as it is entirely possible to run  but the ups and downs just kill that. About 2 miles out from Drymen we spotted a head torch in the distance over by the sheep pen (well not actually) which turned out to be Ross Jack, the husband of one of my final 2 support runners Stacey who’d clearly got the FOMO and dropped the girls early so he could come get involved.

Into the Check point at the high car park in the forestry above Drymen where I was so glad to see Mariam who’d be accompanying me on the last section with Stacey. Rodger the legend, had made another trip to the small store in Drymen and was standing with a fresh bottle of flat coke and a muller rice. I managed a little flat coke and that was about it though, I just wanted to get going without feeling like I was starting the section feeling sick again. Here we said goodbye to Stu, Mark and Neil who’d all done a great job getting me through what I consider to be the crux of this effort and had left me bang on time provided I pulled out a good last section with the girls.

I wanted to run the last section with Mariam and Stacey as this was the reverse of Mariam’s effort where Ross and I ran with her over from Kinlochleven to Fort Bill. I felt if Mariam hadn’t pulled that awesome finish out of the bag and got her sub-24 there would be a high chance we could be on for a divorce after the ‘encouragement’ Ross and I had gave her. I was just going to have to suck up whatever came my way and pull up my Big Boy pants when it came to that last 2 mile section down Mugdock to emulate the tenacity and drive Mariam had shown in June. I don’t really have much to say for this section except it was a few hours of hearing Mariam shouting back from the front “come on Jay” and Stacey behind me saying “you’re doing great Jonny”, while I just tried to run, shuffle limp at something resembling a steady pace. It was nice to see Ross pop up to check if we needed anything again at the Beech Tree road crossing. I don’t think he realised in this dark fog how creepy it looked constantly popping up with a blinding head torch - just kidding Ross. I was glad to get the last big hill finished and onto the short downhill road section to Carbeth as I knew we could easily enough run it in from here. As a nice bonus I managed to get some Kendall Mint Cake in which wasn’t long on giving me a kick of energy and had me wondering why I hadn’t tried this at any stage in the previous 40 miles. As we entered Mugdock I knew the script without it needing to be said and Mariam just lifted the pace! I decided not to look at my watch but I knew it was going to be tight, I’d just do what I could and what would be, would be. We ran well for the 2 miles down to Milngavie town centre and I touched the finish at 20 hours 25 minutes and 59 secs! I’d done it and managed to beat my target time over the 96 mile route by 21 minutes; only realising this after a week of telling folk it’d beat it by 2 minutes, romantically describing my epic finish that emulated what Mariam had done 6 months earlier. I was so happy to be finished and delighted to once again be at the finish of a West Highland Way effort with Mariam and our Friends Ross and Stacey. Like the start this was very low key as it was half one in the morning but I really liked that for some reason as we’d also pretty much not seen a single person on the West Highland Way between Fort William and Milngavie which is a complete rarity.

Finish point in Milngavie with my final support runners

Content at a job well done and to be heading home to my own bed

Strava Screenshot

Final Thoughts

I appreciate this is a long blow by blow account of my effort but I hope this is helpful for other people who may be considering undertaking it in future as I only really found two other accounts that I could use as a little bit of research by Paul Giblin and Neil MacNicol. I think it’s also important for me to acknowledge that weather wise I had a great forecast which really made a long winter effort much more enjoyable. If it was windy, rainy or icy, all of which in winter may be more likely than what I got then I think this would have been a much tougher day out that I wouldn’t have had a chance of beating my old summer time on. All in all though I would say this went about as well as I could have hoped except for my nutrition but I understand you have days like this on the trail and I probably wouldn’t have changed much about the pace that was needed to get down to Beinglas to give me a good distance in the bank because I know from experience that the 70-100 mile mark the wheels always grind a little slower or come off at some point.

Having done the route both directions I would be inclined to say that I feel the profile of North to South is a little more difficult due to getting the lochside at 55 miles in and then Conic from the North on very tired legs, I guess though different tactics of not pushing so hard for the first 55 miles and I may see that differently. Running in the dark with poor visibility really slowed things down in the second darkness as it really affected my ability to commit to descents as I couldn’t see the gradient profile in front of me. This definitely smoked my quads and shin muscles more than I’ve ever experienced before and it’d be worth training slower descents in my opinion for any winter effort and strengthening the tibial muscles.

Doing it in winter has been an awesome challenge and actually a very enjoyable experience. I feel humbled that so many people gave me their time so close to Christmas and we all worked together to make this happen for me. It’s been suggested that this is a Fastest Known Time (FKT) for a winter supported effort North to South on the West Highland Way. That will be amazing if it is and I’ll be sure to log it as I feel its certainly a time a number of runners could take aim at on this iconic route. Doing these individual challenges with your friends has been awesome for both Mariam and myself this year and I would totally suggest others have a go at similar efforts rather than just stacking up race after race. It’s been great for me to relive all this a week after the effort and I’m pleased to report I’ve made a great recovery and am looking forward to running again in 2022 with a renewed enthusiasm for it.