We are on our way to Scotland for the Cateran 110 mile trail event. Scotland's first official event of this distance. We have both completed the West Highland Way which is 95 miles (Neil 3x's and myself 2x's) but this will be the first official event over the 100 mile distance. Last year we both completed the Cateran 55 mile event together. This year the double loop was added - Happy Birthday Neil! I will be crewing for Neil with his brother Graeme. I hear we will be crewing in a new BMW X3 so we will be crewing in style! ;-) I really enjoy crewing for long distance ultra events. It is such a magical journey for both the runner and the crew. The event starts at 6 pm which is a nice start time. There is a 28 hour cut off time - I think Neil will complete it around in 22-24 hours. It's so hard to guess when there are so many factors involved when travelling for an event.
Saturday we started at Cleveland Dam and climbed up to the top of the Hollyburn Chute on the Baden Powell trail. This is the route of the V100 which I hope to complete early June. Wow is it "up" in this section. It was an 1hr and 45 minutes of climbing on some rough terrain. It was good to familiarize myself with this section - I forgot how isolated and spooky it gets deep into the woods.
There must have been a horrendous noise when this tree snapped!
First snow patch we came upon - if we carried on we would have met plenty of snow which I think I will use my Kathoolas on race day to get through the snow sections.
Looking forward to our trip to catch up with family, friends and to participate in the Cateran 110 Event. Kendall and Chris will be joining us from Baltimore after the run. We will be celebrating a special birthday for Neil that week. My gift to him was the Cateran 110 mile event. What a great gift! ;-)
