So I had my long-awaited hike in Scotland over the weekend.
The idea was to hike 54 miles in under 24 hours through the West Highland Way of Scotland. I was incredibly and retardedly under-prepared for the hike, having been on vacation for 2.5 weeks before and having approximately 2 hills in this entire country on which to train.
We started at 8am and I was amazed at how fast people were moving and I didn't think anyone would be able to hold the pace they first made. Amazingly, most of them did. The landscape was vicious in a word. Constantly really rocky (small, loose rocks) and narrow paths or roads. Mostly wide open areas and awesome views. Inclines were tough but fun, declines were just terrible. It was overcast and rainy and no more than 50 degrees all day, which isn't so bad with the right gear. The bugs were freakin horrible, I had to wear a net over my head and lather my hands in repellent.
There were 4 checkpoints, 10-12 miles apart, where we had support people with food and water ready and our packs containing other things (extra socks, clothes). I was pretty stupid and carried way too much stuff 'in case' I might need it, which of course I never did, so I just carried a heavier than needed pack around the whole time. Without these checkpoints it would have been brutal, and our support team from my company was awesome. It makes for great format in which to attempt something like this. So the hike was boring and we were getting passed, often. Let me tell you, when you're at mile 30, with nearly a marathon to go, and a group of middle age women overtake you, you just want to kill yourself. We jogged a lot of the downhills to make up time and it was a bit easier on the feet. Obviously my legs were tired and my feet hurt, but I felt reasonably good almost the entire time.
Anger over a faster pace turned to fear of getting a crappy time turned to fear of not finishing. About 2 miles from checkpoint 4 my feet started to hurt, real bad. Not sure why, but the arch of my foot just locked up and I was forced to limp. We get into a large, warm tent at CP 4 (mile 42) at 12:30 am and and it looked like a military triage center. People were crying, Royal Marines were running around, people getting first aid and massages. Then I made a huge mistake: I laid down. I waited to get a massage on my foot and calves. I cooled down considerably. When I left the tent, I went into what felt like hypothermia. So the support staff shuffled me into a van and started feeding me. Then I got completely stiff and my foot was killing me. I was doing the hike with 2 buddies from my old Baltimore office who are also working here abroad, and they weren't feeling good by any means either. We get out of the van to try and walk around and see if we can continue, and we were all real iffy. I made the call first and refused to limp 12 miles in what
probably would have taken me 6 hrs starting at 1 am. We also didn't have head torches (retarded) and because it was overcast it was real dark. It was also tough from a competitive standpoint, because these two german guys who were hardcore hikers had an hour lead on us at CP 3. When we got to CP 4, they got in 5 min ahead of us and quit, an emotional blow (if they couldn't do it what the hell was I thinking). We all decided to throw in the towel. That made it 42 miles in something like 16 hrs. Of the 1500 people who did it, our time at CP 4 was around 450th. 1000 people finished.
The idea was to hike 54 miles in under 24 hours through the West Highland Way of Scotland. I was incredibly and retardedly under-prepared for the hike, having been on vacation for 2.5 weeks before and having approximately 2 hills in this entire country on which to train.
We started at 8am and I was amazed at how fast people were moving and I didn't think anyone would be able to hold the pace they first made. Amazingly, most of them did. The landscape was vicious in a word. Constantly really rocky (small, loose rocks) and narrow paths or roads. Mostly wide open areas and awesome views. Inclines were tough but fun, declines were just terrible. It was overcast and rainy and no more than 50 degrees all day, which isn't so bad with the right gear. The bugs were freakin horrible, I had to wear a net over my head and lather my hands in repellent.
There were 4 checkpoints, 10-12 miles apart, where we had support people with food and water ready and our packs containing other things (extra socks, clothes). I was pretty stupid and carried way too much stuff 'in case' I might need it, which of course I never did, so I just carried a heavier than needed pack around the whole time. Without these checkpoints it would have been brutal, and our support team from my company was awesome. It makes for great format in which to attempt something like this. So the hike was boring and we were getting passed, often. Let me tell you, when you're at mile 30, with nearly a marathon to go, and a group of middle age women overtake you, you just want to kill yourself. We jogged a lot of the downhills to make up time and it was a bit easier on the feet. Obviously my legs were tired and my feet hurt, but I felt reasonably good almost the entire time.
Anger over a faster pace turned to fear of getting a crappy time turned to fear of not finishing. About 2 miles from checkpoint 4 my feet started to hurt, real bad. Not sure why, but the arch of my foot just locked up and I was forced to limp. We get into a large, warm tent at CP 4 (mile 42) at 12:30 am and and it looked like a military triage center. People were crying, Royal Marines were running around, people getting first aid and massages. Then I made a huge mistake: I laid down. I waited to get a massage on my foot and calves. I cooled down considerably. When I left the tent, I went into what felt like hypothermia. So the support staff shuffled me into a van and started feeding me. Then I got completely stiff and my foot was killing me. I was doing the hike with 2 buddies from my old Baltimore office who are also working here abroad, and they weren't feeling good by any means either. We get out of the van to try and walk around and see if we can continue, and we were all real iffy. I made the call first and refused to limp 12 miles in what
probably would have taken me 6 hrs starting at 1 am. We also didn't have head torches (retarded) and because it was overcast it was real dark. It was also tough from a competitive standpoint, because these two german guys who were hardcore hikers had an hour lead on us at CP 3. When we got to CP 4, they got in 5 min ahead of us and quit, an emotional blow (if they couldn't do it what the hell was I thinking). We all decided to throw in the towel. That made it 42 miles in something like 16 hrs. Of the 1500 people who did it, our time at CP 4 was around 450th. 1000 people finished.
1 comment:
excuses excuses excuses.
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