Training Log Archive: 'Bent

Lowe Alpine Mountain Marathon day 1- See Bash's log for details and tons of pics.
Perfect, sunny Scottish day.

We were given a huge laminated map with lots of controls marked, but only found out which ones were ours for day 1 after we were bussed to the start and had punched the start control, then had to mark them down.
Lots of climbing, and most of the B course left us behind pretty quickly as they jogged off. Still, we hiked along pretty well. Fantastic scenery, perfect weather.

The controls were subtle and hard to find, but Bash was on her game with solid and confident nav, and I was able to do some final honing in for a few of them. We ran a few km on a road around to one control, where the pack went up-and-over, but it seemed to work for us.

Early in the day I was keen to go faster, and my knee felt good, with my poles, compression tights and advil. Different story later on- by the last hour of the first day my good knee had taken a lot of pounding as I favoured it, so both were hurting. Bash was jogging ahead lightly as I dragged behind, asking her to slow down, while teams passed by. The 200M shuffle- jog to the finish was nasty.
Not really surprising given that I'd done virtually no running for 7 months.

Camp was fine- we were warmer than in Sweden thanks to our Salomon gear and my 1lb down sleeping bag. There was a huge crowd of racers around a car with the World Cup soccer game on the radio!
I was wondering how my knee would do the next day, as it was sore around camp.

Most folks were in C, D or Score-O categories. Glad we didn't do A as planned before I got injured!

We were 66th out of 84 on the B course. Not surprising given how little we ran, and how slow I was at the end. Oh, and my dropping my map at a stream and realizing it only after 5 minutes of hard climbing didn't help either.

Incidentally, I carried less water and used a Steri-Pen to treat one bottle at a time on the course. It only takes 45 seconds, plus all the time to go back and find the map! I was surprised to see folks just drinking from the streams, given all the sheep shite everywhere and the odd carcass we saw.

Got this taper/ rest-the-knee thing dialed. Long winding spectacular drives in the Highlands, visiting castles and battlefields, and carb loading via soy mochas, drams of scotch and local seafood.
At least we know where LAMM is now- Glen Fyne, near Inverary, ancestral home of the Campbell clan, and that's where we're staying.

First soggy day in Scotland.
We decided to bike the trails near Avimore, at a place I can't pronounce or remember. Nice destination ride to a spectacular loch, AR style riding through some creeks on rocky ATV trails and some smooth bike trail.
Different riding a hardtail with hub gears- I can see why Phats.jr likes the simplicity even thought this was just an 8spd.

Late lunch at Bash's idea of heaven- a great cafe with superb coffee, great meals and excellent baking connected with a really good outdoor gear store.

C • 8spd * 1.75 10

Easier knee-sparing hike around the Quiriang, a mordor-esque rock formation near the coast of Skye. Fog added to the mystique, and even some nav challenge.
Some cool drives and castle visits too, and the fog burned off for another gorgeous day.