Petestack Blog

It’s known as the ‘Cluanie Horseshoe’, but what a daft name for a circuit that’s only really a horseshoe when taken from the north, with many miles of road separating the logical starting point up Glen Affric from Cluanie just a short crow’s flight to the south and no remotely tidy way to link its Munros and Tops from its ‘named’ side! (more…)

Mullach na Dheiragain’s not the sort of hill you climb by accident. Being a long way from anywhere, you have to really want it, and I did! (more…)

So you’re an ‘endurance athlete’ and lean is mean, but it’s not always easy to stay lean and mean when you’re built like a 5’11” brick and naturally greedy! Losing the weight once is easy because a simple rule like just saying no to everything is easy enough to understand, but keeping it all off when you start to realise you can still get away with greed if you’re active enough (to quote John L Parker Jr from Once A Runner, ‘If the furnace is hot enough, it will burn anything’) is much, much harder. (more…)

Today was important. It’s a year to the day since Dario Melaragni died so suddenly on Lochnagar and, by decree of the Subversive Firefighting Pirate (sorry… forum link now defunct), West Highland Way Race followers everywhere were going to be taking a wee dram in his memory at 8:00pm. Now, I’d decided to take mine at the top of the Devil’s Staircase (scene of my own little memorial run last July), but was also out for a ride on the mountain bike earlier… (more…)

Having run 90 miles last week, found that surprisingly straightforward but knowing it’s still a big week by my standards, I thought it might be fun to mix in some mountain biking (something that’s still pretty new to me) to give me a break from the pounding for a day or two. (more…)