Part 2 - Beinglas to Tyndrum

It's official. I'm a sad, sad person. I returned to work today after being off for 9 weeks and what's the first thing I do when I get home? I check the WHW forum, all the WHW blogs I read and my own to see if I've got any comments. How sad is that? I'm being sucked in!

Ok, down to business.

Beinglas Farm

As usual, we parked in the Inverarnan Hotel car park and walk up to the farm. As usual, there were many WHW backup crews parked there. You are not supposed to be there! And it was people who've been doing this for years! Ok, I'm getting down from my high horse now.

The midgies were awful as usual but there were a few souls who had decided to brave it without their midgie nets. I kindly shared my nuke-em spray since clearly the Skin So Soft was not working this year.

I did a lot of listening here. It was clear that there were a few newbies who still didn't really know what to expect. Lots of people were on their mobiles obviously relaying info back to relatives. I overheard one English guy saying "I'm at Ben-gallus farm now." If you're not familiar with Weegie patter you won't understand why that's funny!

Beinglas is the end of The Runner's worst part of the race. Every year he looks dreadful and I feel really emotional when I see him in such pain. But we had to stick to the schedule and get him out as quick as possible.

Derrydarroch

I didn't go there, but the Bearded One ran down to check The Runner was ok. Maybe if I had gone, I'd have seen the Mad Aussie go for his skinny dip!

Auchtertyre

We have used this checkpoint a few times now so I know where the entrance is. It was a bit of a shocker to see roadworks and traffic lights covering the entrance. It didn't help that a plonker going the other way had stopped right in front of it. (I thought the Highway Code said you shouldn't stop in front of entrances!) So I held up the traffic behind me trying to turn right. The lights changed to green but the cars couldn't go cos there was a queue behind me. But I remained calm and resisted the temptation to yell $%&£! at him.

When we eventually got in, it was a bit of a squeeze to get parked. It was only when one runner came in that I realised that 4 (FOUR!) cars were the backup for this runner. Who needs 4 backup vehicles?! *gets back up on to high horse again*

Tyndrum

Since this is no longer a checkpoint it was blissfully quiet and easy to park. We met a backup crew who had completely missed the Auchtertyre entrance and had to go back. I think a few crews had to do the same. The Runner didn't stop here but took soup and coffee with him to walk up the hill. Tiredness was setting in for me and I completely misjudged pouring water into the bottle The Bearded One was holding. Let's just say he got a bit wet! At least it wasn't hot coffee.

Next stop, Bridge of Orchy.