Meall nan Tarmachan hill race

In mid-August, I met up with Andy Nicholls for another Munro bagging trip accessible from Glasgow. He wanted a short day so I chose this Tayside hill with the option of the Ridge to add interest. At the same time, I had been looking for another race to do at the beginning of October. The inaugural Penicuik Estate trail race was scheduled for 6th October, but I discovered it was already full so looked for something else and the Scottish Hill Racing site came up with this race.

18th August on Meall Garbh with Andy

Over the subsequent weeks, I kept an eye on the SiEntries page for the race. There were only a handful of names down so I wasn't worried about missing out. On the week of the race, the weather forecast looked OK so I got my wallet out and signed up.

On the Saturday morning, I calculated my driving times and arrived in sunny Killin. I wandered along to the NTS office at Lynedoch, spying a few stick insects doing the same. Inside I was greeted by three windblown men at a table who gave me my number, a car park pass and map of the route. They reminded me that I had to carry weatherproof gear (waterproof trousers, coat, hat, gloves, whistle, compass). I said my bag was back in the car, but they grinned and said "We trust you."

After a visit to the public lav, I drove up the Lawers road crawling past the now full NTS car park and stopping in a grassy layby. The weather was fine and bright. All the hills were clear but there was a slight Nwerly breeze coming down from the damhead. I ate some food and got changed, initially deciding on a single t-shirt, but quite quickly adding my thermal & eventually my wet weather coat.

I trotted along to the start line. a couple of hundred metres up the road on the LR track that heads off round the Meall nan Tarmachan hillside. There were perhaps a hundred people gathered there, runners, supporters and marshalls. I trotted about to keep warm, and then slotted into the melee with 5mins to go.

The organiser (Dan) stood on a gatepost and made a briefing about the route, the race, the prizes (of 288 bottles of beer!) We were asked to cross the bridge in single-file in order for them to count us out and finally we were off. I immediately found myself being subsumed by the pack and struggled to get into a rhythm on the rough track. After a couple of minutes, we suddenly left the track for the hillside and the footpath. There was an initial bottleneck at a burn crossing, and some swearing. Some athletes jumped into the heather to overtake.

On the initial ascent

Very soon, most resorted to fast walking, with a little trot on anything that was close to flat. Onto the ridge and then some faster progress towards the first checkpoint at 923m. It was manned by a couple of Killin MR team members, I passed a greeting before horsing down to the fenceline in the col. I was able to overtake the two I had been on the heels of, and then realised I was at the front of a small group for the final summit (very steep) summit ascent 😟

In the summit gully, heart pounding out of my chest

After the gully, I was overtaken again and the final metres to the Munro summit were a bit of a slog. I put the camera away just beyond the marshalls on the summit, and then tried to up the pace along the ridge towards Meall Garbh. My legs were like jelly and any ground undulating to uphill reduced me to a walk. The runners who had overtaken me before the summit were now a long way in the distance, I tried hard to stop anyone else passing me. 

At last I reached the marshalls at Meall Garbh and turned left off the ridge to follow the line of flags that had been placed to mark a 'recommended' descent route. Although I followed it closely, it was clearly not the optimal line. A handful of other runners came careering past away to the right of the ridge. They obviously knew something I didn't! 

I was overtaken by at least ten runners on the descent, and didn't overtake anyone. Not good. Dropped onto the LR track and then tried to trot the ~2km back to the finish. This transition reminded me of the Earlston race when I hit the tarmac after the hill descent. My legs struggled to get back into a rhythm, and once again another runner came past. But I kept the pace, and was able to claw back some metres, even passing one person. 

From the finish, I continued to jog back to the car and home as I had commitments waiting. Latterly, I was interested to read that the 2nd place runner was only 18 (Kieran Cooper), and had beaten the Lairig Ghru race winner George Foster, both of whom would feature on the Adventure Show the following weekend. 

1hr10min09s  43/79