Glen Tilt

I'm still on holiday so planned to fit in one more long run before the Fling a week on Saturday (yikes!). Graeme gave me a shout as he was keen to get another long day in too before the Maggies Challenge in May so after seeing Monday's forecast, we decided to head for Glen Tilt. I had planned a route that would take us up the Tilt, across to the originally titled Loch Loch, then back to Blair Atholl to the South of the Beinn A'Ghlo massif. A very rough working showed that to be about 30ish miles.

It was a cracking day and we figured that leaving the car at the Loch Moraig car park would mean we could run down the tarred road at the start instead of at the end of the run. The run up Glen Tilt was pleasant and we covered the first 14 miles in little over 2 hours - then we hit a snag.

We needed to cross the River Tilt, but the only bridge was a a wire bridge, which wouldn't be a problem but we had Cody with us. Now he can do cattle grids, but I think wire rope bridges are a bit beyond him, so it wasn't an option, if he'd tried to swim the river at that point he'dve been swept away. We tried to find a suitable place to cross but the river was just too high and fast with all the snow melt, so we opted to just run back down the glen, giving us a 28 mile run.














Cody hogging the limelight, but that's the uncrossable river in the background

As we went Graeme suggested climbing Carn A Chlamain, a munro to the west of the glen. We'd both done it a few times, but he argued it would take us over 30 miles and make the day abit tougher. He was to regret that suggestion later ...














Looking toward the Charn A Chlamain summit

I was struggling to run in the heat so the walk on the climb was welcome, Graeme however was struggling with the climb. We skooted down the land rover track back in to the glen and by Marble Lodge we decided that I should press on, get the car and meet Graeme at the track end. I found the last few miles tough, I was dehydrated, my hamstrings were tight and to top it all off I had to go UP the tarred road we had run down earlier ! Map of the route -



















The dog launched himself into the loch at the car park and didn't want to come out, it looked very tempting. I was glad to get a long run in hot weather before the Fling as that was my first hot run last year and I really struggled. The pace wasn't great 32 miles in 7 hours, but it did include a munro, and I did manage to keep the cramp at bay this time.

My monthly mileage is progressing well, I'm already well over the total for last month (not hard, I know) and I now plan to do a few shorter runs and get a deep massage before the Fling.