Salomon Ben Nevis Ultra

I love mountain running and I love the Highlands so I was really excited about the Ben Nevis Ultra. I’ve only raced in the UK so far but my heart has felt the beat of the Chamonix valley and I want to build up both points and experience for the UTMB. The Ben Nevis Ultra looked like the perfect UK-based European-style mountain race:

“The Salomon Ben Nevis Ultra™ follows in the tradition of Skyrunning, which consists of uncompromising mountain running, such as easy scrambling along mountain ridges with steep ascents, traverses and descents on technical and challenging terrain. The Salomon Ben Nevis Ultra™ route is only suitable for experienced and competent mountain runners.”

After a year of achilles-related disappointments (including a race-ending flare up while representing Scotland in the Anglo Celtic Plate) things were starting to look good again. I had had some great long days out in Chamonix (during and then after Robbie Britton and Natalie White’s fab Alpine Training Camp) and a few more 4-5 hour runs in the Lomonds. I was feeling as confident as you can be about a 120km ultra marathon!

I did a recce of most of the second half of the course at the end of August (I recommend the campsite at Bunroy, Roybridge, fewer mosquitos than Glen Nevis and very nice owners). I split the recce into two because the weather (45 mph gusts and driving rain) made the CMD arête a bit too hairy!

Race Day

The race started 3 minutes late (this was to be crucial for me later) while we stood around shivering waiting for a group photo while the photographer struggled to make the camera work in the dark.

We set off up the road through Fort Augustus, head torches on, moving quietly. Mira Rai floated off into the distance ahead, which was pretty cool to watch! Having got cold standing around at the start I set off conservatively. For anyone new to this blog, I have mastocytosis (too many, unstable mast cells - think allergies turned up to eleven, randomised) and have to warm up very carefully.

The first long steady climb was beautiful, the landscape painting itself around us as the sun rose.

The descent down the Corrieyairack Pass was spectacular, and fast, and joyful. I passed a few men and women on the descent, I was smiling and happy and feeling good at the Melgarve checkpoint (and within 30 seconds of my target time). The trail petered out and became pretty muddy. Then mud became marsh and then bog. I was expecting to cover this in 70 minutes rather than just shy of 2 hours! Stupidly I had forgotten to bring snorkel and flippers. Or a boat. 

This section was the beginning of SO MUCH BOG that turned what could have been a great race into a sufferfest. It was just miserable. It wasn’t running, and with the worst of it coming so early in the race it set the vast majority up to fail: it added time but it is also far more exhausting than trail running and the added time screwed up nutrition plans. I was planning to go as far as the Nevis Range on Tailwind and a few bits of Clifbar and veggie Percy pigs - and did - but it meant I was averaging only 117 calories (29g carbs) an hour. 

A number of ultra runners with UTMB, CCC, TDS, Laveredo finishes to their names either quit or were timed out at 54km. I hope the international runners who were drawn to Scotland for the first time haven’t been put off trying any of the other big races like the Highland Fling or the West Highland Way. Snorkels and flippers are not mandatory kit for either and they are well supported.

The support stations for the Ben Nevis Ultra were disappointing, particularly considering the very high cost of entry and this, from the website: “our vision is to provide the best possible support for the runners at these [three] locations so that route completion is more achievable.”

Coming into Brae Roy after the first and longest section of marsh/bog in the rain I was expecting to find some shelter, hot soup, a choice of snacks, but was disappointed on all points. I was planning to change my top and put on my waterproof jacket but with no shelter or anywhere to put my bag down while transferring my number onto the other top I just pulled my waterproof on. There was a single trestle table with a few bits of cake, tea, coffee, water and Coke visible. There was a queue for the single water dispenser. The cake looked wet. I had a Coke topped up with hot water. Not exactly ‘the best possible support’.

I had been bog snorkelling with Charlie who managed the most impressive bog sink of the day. She sank in up to her hips and I had to call back two male runners to rescue her and be ready to pull me across as I too began to sink. Huge thanks to them both for coming back for us! Charlie and I left the aid station together and I wanted to run with her but I had got so cold and miserable I dropped back. I reminded myself that the me that was told I would never run again back in 2012 would be giving me a slap and managed to turn my mental state around.

Me enjoying a more runnable section! Pic: David Scorer

The next section teased us with occasional 100-200 metre stretches of trail that raised our hopes before sinking them back in more bog or deep river crossings. I caught back up with Charlie then on a downhill mud slide pulled ahead deciding the kamikaze approach to descending was just as effective in terms of staying upright as actually endeavouring to stay upright. I fell so many times that when I went down hard, face first, into the mud I simply got up and carried on wiping the grime out of my ears and eyes. My bottles were covered but I had nothing to clean them with because everything was mud. Everything in the whole world.

The fire road came as a welcome break. I’ve never thought that before. It’s boring, it’s basically road, it’s the bit that gets you to the good stuff… Then Inverlair and more fabulously ‘boring’ fire road. I fell in with a small spread out group of men who I was to pass and be passed by repeatedly all the way to the Nevis Range. Much of this section was through sheep fields alongside the river Spean. I said ‘hello’ to lots of sheep. None said ‘hi’ back. Won’t stop me trying. The weeks of rain had made this section boggy and the few runners ahead had made it worse than it had been when I did a recce in August. The section between Choire Choille and the Nevis Range had got longer too… Or felt it on legs that had had their joie de vivre sucked out by a bog several hours earlier. 

I ran into the Nevis Range, checked in then my amazing support washed and reapplied Compeed to my feet. Fresh socks and less crap in my shoes felt fantastic. Almost spiritual. I suddenly had a deep understanding for Dylan the Schnekingese sock thief. 

I set off towards the CMD arête feeling confident and strong. I was soon trotting up a lovely bit of trail and looking up at the Ben with excitement. Then my heart sank as I saw two small orange flags guiding us off this beautiful trail onto more bog. My socks… Oh my socks! 

The bog continued almost all the way up to the CMD. At times I was on my hands and knees hauling myself up as my feet failed to find purchase. It was like Tough Mudder but on the side of a mountain. These two pictures speak a thousand words. The first is ascending on trail, the second is ascending on bog:

I had had enough. I stood for a full minute watching the sun disappear behind the clouds, knowing it was perhaps 45 minutes until sunset and feeling utterly wretched despite the outstanding beauty. The elevation profile on my watch showed me I was much closer to down than up. I wanted to go down. But I had no reason to quit. I was not injured. I was not sick. I was just tired and cold and thoroughly pissed off. It wasn’t just the mud it was that I fucking love trail running (sorry Mum!!!) and we kept getting short stretches of it before being diverted off onto mud. I just didn’t see the point. 

I swallowed a gel (the only one I used), took a deep breath, put on my buff and gloves and turned to face the rain and the mud. I caught up with Charlotte on the CMD arête and we stuck together, looking for way markers that, having been so excellent throughout were suddenly missing. Both of us knew that a small navigational error could have serious consequences and made our way cautiously. At the top of Ben Nevis I stopped concentrating and smashed my knees into a rock. The marshals on the CMD and Ben Nevis were astonishingly chipper in the cold wind, they must have had a very long day too. 

I hadn’t done a night recce of the Ben descent because I thought I would be in Kinlochleven by nightfall so the descent was a bit tougher than when I had tested my two shoe options there on a very different day:

Ben Nevis summit on my recce

Happy traileur

My Petzl head torch was good though and as I trotted steadily down I started thinking about the final miles. Proper trail! I was feeling better than I had since Melgarve. I ran into Nevis Glen expecting to check in, grab two bottles of Tailwind from my own support and head for home. Only 18km and on proper trail! Proper Trail!

As I arrived the marshall told me I couldn’t check in. Why? ‘You have to go to the table first’. So I went to the table. Now what? I looked at them and they looked at their watches. 2 to 3 minutes later they said ‘you’re timed out’. For a few seconds I was confused, then it sank in. With at least two thirds to three quarters of the field behind me it hadn’t crossed my mind that I was close to the cut off times. I have never been close to a cut off time in my life. I have finished all my previous trail ultras in the top two women and between 4th and 8th overall. 

I was absolutely gutted. Once I realised that if the race had started on time or the marshall had been clearer and told me that I had to use their support or mine and leave within 3 minutes I would have been on the West Highland Way and battling for a top 10 finish I was completely devastated. I felt robbed. Memories are so precious and I will not have the memory of crossing the finish line in Kinlochleven. I won’t have the photos to look back on. The medal on my wall. Just the deep and painful bitter disappointment.

On Sunday I requested a meeting with Shane Ohly but he was understandable busy so I was given time to talk to Graham Gristwood from Ourea Events, who did listen but offered only sympathy. I think they made an error in the course design and a far bigger one on the day of not allowing runners who made it to Glen Nevis to continue. They relaxed the cut off before Ben Nevis, which meant runners were up there in the dark ‘shattered and scared’. But runners chomping at the bit to run the much safer final section were denied the opportunity. When only four men and no women reached the finish before the scheduled prize giving ceremony it became clear Ourea misjudged the course. When female GB and Scottish international ultra runners are timed out alongside European elite men (by ITRA classification) at Glen Nevis (and c. 70% of the entire field are timed out or retire) the cut offs are not acceptable. As one very competent mountain runner (UTMB, TDS, CCC and Laveredo finisher) put it: “it felt pretty elitist. The cut-offs felt a bit 'keep up or f*ck off’”. 

Personally I just didn't understand the route, it felt like suffering for the sake of suffering. It wasn't a running race. Suffering and ultra running go together but there is a big difference between testing your limits (length, vert, heat, cold etc) and suffering for suffering's sake. For me running is about joy and freedom, it is something precious that was once taken away and I’ve had to fight to get back. And when I thought I would never run again it felt like grief and the thing I felt I had lost was the sheer joy of momentum, those moments when running feels like flying. Not once did I wish for more hours wading through marshland and sinking into bog up to my thighs.

https://www.strava.com/activities/1189625810/overview