Time On Your Feet: The Lahrig Ghru

As has become my recent habit, I am writing my blog from being stuck on public transport. This time, it is a plane, which I have been sat on at Inverness airport for about an hour. As much as I like sitting on planes, I was hoping at some point this one might move somewhere, back to London, say, but alas so far, it seems firmly grounded.

Hey ho. I'm only going back for work. I'm not in any rush, come to think of it. In fact, maybe the plane will become so delayed it won't be able to go, and I will be stuck in the Highlands indefinitely.

Because the running here is great! Up on a social trip, so no races this weekend, but got to do a great run along the Lahrig Ghru, so had to say something about it, because it is a dramatic and bewitching place!

The Lahrig Ghru is a mountain pass that goes through the Cairngorms, from Speyside on the one side to Deeside on the other, passing under the shadow of Britain's second highest mountain, Ben MacDui. My main experience of it so far, has been to gaze at its moody hights from afar, during holidays in Aviemore. Most of the time, it seems to be covered in swirling clouds, every so often clearing to reveal a long passage stretching up into the mountains, framed by dark and forbidding peaks, only to be covered in clouds a moment later. It fills me with awe and fear! I did brave it and do some of it once with Andrew, and it was his birthday wish (I'm not allowed to say which birthday, not even mention it, woops, haha!) to return and run the whole thing. And when it's your birthday, your wishes come true!

So it was, that we found ourselves on an early train from Inverness to Aviemore. After a quick stop at a petrol station to fuel up (alas, to fuel us, not a car) we set off to run a couple of miles along a nice mountain bike track through forests to reach Coylumbridge, and then turned right off up towards the Lahrig Ghru.

I like this bit. It's uphill, but along red soil tracks, through pine forests and heather. I was trying to enjoy the moment, and ignore the Lahrig Ghru ahead, where the clouds were gathering....

We climbed higher and the weather stayed good for a bit longer.

But as tempestuous as the weather is in the Scottish mountains, it turned in second, and the rain poured down. We rounded a corner, which had turned out to be sheltering us from the full force if the wind down the valley, and boom! I stared back through the cloud, and saw Aviemore in a little pool of sunlight far below. Oh, to be running happily through those pine forests! But no. Birthday wishes and all! We pressed on up the boulder field, and as we reached the highest point below Ben MacDui, it started to hail. It was really quite cold. I was regretting not bringing more hardcore mountain gear. I had a sudden premonition that this was going to be like an episode of that 999 programme with Micheal Burke narrating. Motivated to not to become a headline story, we pressed on, running through rivers, picking over boulders, which wasn't always successful, and I made a short diversion to land upside down in some heather....

Luckily, as we'd passed the highest point and started coming down the other side, the weather cleared up, and as it was so windy, we dried out pretty quick.

It even cleared up enough to see some wildlife, and Andrew spotted a haggis running along the mountain...

The views coming down the other side were out of this world! The sun even came out as we came down towards the Forest of Mar. I absolutely loved this part! It was so nice to feel warm after being so freezing, and so nice to feel content after feeling so anxious up in the mountains. Pictures speak much better than words sometimes....