powderach

After two years of being stuck at home over Easter I was excited to be able to have a four-day adventure again this year! At 30 weeks pregnant I was still running regularly but very slowly and only short distances, so going by foot wouldn't get me very far. I decided to cycle the Five Ferries route. People usually aim to cycle this in a single day. This sounds fun but quite stressful as you have to time it well for each ferry! I used Fiona Outdoors' excellent blog post to plan my route. My plan was to ride it over four days, which would give me plenty of time to explore, take the occasional detour, and not have to rush for ferries! The distances I planned were very unambitious: only around 20 miles a day. This was deliberate; I know I am prone to overdo it, which means I'm then very tired on subsequent days. I knew I would be able to ride 20 miles over a whole day even if I was super tired.

Conquering Dumyat

I ran the Ochil Ultra in late September. It's a 50 mile race from Perth to Stirling across the Ochil Hills. The idea of linking the two cities appealed to me and I liked the idea of a low-key local ultramarathon to end the season. However there was a small problem with the route: Dumyat.

In early September I had some free time and was keen to have an adventure. I had an ultramarathon to run the following week so a long run didn't seem like a sensible idea. I needed to be in Kinlochleven by the weekend. The obvious choice was to arrive by bike!