Bill’s Amazing Ramsay Round

Distance of 56 miles and 28,500 feet of climbing.


Bill takes up the story …..

“As we were making our way up to Fort William, I brought the start time forward from 2am Sat morning to 8pm Friday evening to take advantage of a window in the wet weather. That was good because the weather wasn’t too bad – occasional drizzle and low cloud, but no real rain until the final couple of hours, by which time we were on the home straight so it didn’t really matter. There’s still quite a bit of snow on Ben Nevis and the Grey Corries, and some of the slopes are very slippery with all the rain and melted snow.

Just as you’d expect, my support team were fantastic – the last minute change of start time meant that everyone’s timings of when they were going to have to run changed completely, but it all went like clockwork, with Anne running the show!

Unfortunately, from fairly early on I found that IĀ just had very little energy. My whole body was much more tired than it should have been. I don’t know why. I had been doing a lot of hard training in the previous few months, and then had 19 days of relative rest – perhaps that wasn’t long enough recovery? Or perhaps it was too much?

Anyway, I had decided that I was not going to carry on by the time I got to Fersit, a third of the way round. However unbeknown to me my support team had made a pact that the only way they were going to let me stop was if I was ill or physically unable to continue! I’m glad they did that.

Karl accompanied me on the long first section over Ben Nevis and the Grey CorriesĀ – the hardest support section of any of the 24 hour rounds, and even Karl looked shattered at the end of it. We lost about 15 minutes in the dark and cloud on the snowy slopes of Aonach Beag when I made a navigational mistake, but got back on track.
Lee supported me on the second section, and Mike and Linda on the third and final section across the Mamores.

By about halfway through, I knew I was not going to get round in 24 hours, but I wanted to complete the circuit in however long it took. As you know, I got round in 25:54, and I am absolutely delighted.”