Category: West Highland Way

The West Highland Way Race 2019 – RACE REPORT

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The West Highland Way Race 2019

TIME: 22 Hours 15 Minutes and 58 Seconds

OVERALL : 55th/196 finishers

GENDER: 5th/45 female finishers

The fight is always worth it.

“It’s very unusual to have a dream race two years in a row…..”
These words still echo in my ears, as first as disappointment but now after a week of reflection I’m finally realising what I put my body through. What is there to be disappointed in?

The build up to this years West Highland Way race again hadn’t gone perfectly smoothly, but I’m starting to realise that’s probably just the norm? How many of us do have the perfect run up for months of training? After the race last year I was 100% committed I was doing it again and going to try and run it faster. If you look back at my 2018 race report, I pretty much did have the dream race and remember thinking to myself on several occasions I was well overdue a low spell. The wheels did eventually start to fall off as Jo dragged me across Lairig Mor at a pace I never knew was possible having already ran 81 miles, but finishing in just over 21 hours was more than I’d ever imagined I was capable of, and now I wanted to push more…..
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RACE REPORT – The West Highland Way Race 2018

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“I’m often asked what I think about as I run. Usually the people who ask this have never run long distances themselves. I always ponder the question. What exactly do I think about when I’m running? I don’t have a clue.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

The West Highland Way Race 2018

TIME: 21 Hours 2 Minutes and 51 Seconds

OVERALL : 31st/198 finishers

GENDER: 4th/46 females

Why we do it…

The West Highland Way race 2018 was a race unlike any other. Once again the magic of the race, along with 21 hours racing, being awake most of the day before added on to a few nights post race insomnia, has mangled my already fragile end of term brain. Trying to put it into words has been a struggle up until now, but I think the story is finally ready to fall out of my fingers…
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Guest Blog – WHW Race crewing 2018 by Joanna Murphy.

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One of my brilliant friends had written a blog post on her side of the West Highland Way race. Enjoy!
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The race from a crewing perspective!

I can’t remember exactly when I was enrolled to Iona’s support crew but I think it was shortly after the 2017 race. I knew for sure I wanted a year away from racing this myself but couldn’t bear not to be involved. Despite having run the race twice myself and enlisted the help of my own support crews, I have never previously been on the other side.

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The Highland Fling 2018 – RACE REPORT

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The Highland Fling 2018

TIME: 10 Hours 07 Minutes and 09 Seconds

OVERALL : 107th/673 finishers

GENDER: 13th/186 females

run finish

The Highland Fling 2018 was to be not only my first ‘A’ race of the season, but my first race of the season. My run training went downhill in January after a foot injury threw me off course and I wasn’t back to high weekly mileage until the end of February, which meant about 5 weeks of proper training before the taper began. What could possibly go wrong?!
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New year, new you? Nah, more of the same please :)

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New year always seems to be about change. Whether is be changing yourself or changing things in your life, people always seem to use the new year to kick start these new habits. My New Year isn’t going to be so much about change, but more about focus. I had an amazing year last year; I got to go on adventures to places I’d never even heard of, I got to run some amazing races and go on plenty of wonderful training days out with awesome like minded people and I got to spend time with my loved ones, but I also wasted a lot of time. Be it through watching rubbish TV, looking at my phone at nothing in particular for too long (where does time actually go when you do that?!), or going to bed too late and feeling rubbish in the morning so not getting up early enough to do all the amazing thing I had planned…THAT is my weakness, and that’s why I need more focus. I am working on becoming qualified as a personal trainer and I have a lot of work to do in the build up to it, especially since it has been quite a while since I sat down with my books and highlighters. Social media, smart phones and wifi didn’t exist when I was at University, so switching my focus brain back on will be hard!!

It’s been a while since I last posted and I think I’m about 3 race reports behind, but I can recap that in the annual year round up below… 🙂
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