Tis the season

Some punter doing the 2009 Pentland Skyline. Photo: Bill Fairmaner

I'm pretty sure I've written a blog entry at this time every year for the last three years saying the same thing; but really, where did the summer go?

It only seems like yesterday that it was June and I was dangling off a very big rope half way down a large Hebridean cliff, and now look at it: the leaves are turning and the first dusting of snow has been reported on UKC. Surely it's only a matter of time before someone claims a winter ascent of Pygmy Ridge. For me, this time of year means donning the lycra and heading out running in the hills. Yes folks, it's OMM season.

I've done the OMM, or KIMM as it was, every year since 2004, so despite it being down on Dartmoor this year (mountain marathon, seriously?) I'm signed up again. I've run it with the same chap, Duncan Steen, for the last 5 years, each year doing better than the last, so the aim is high and the training is in full affect. I try to do one big hill run every weekend for the two months leading up to the race at the end of October, which means I generally don't get too upset if the weather is too crap for climbing (which it seems to be), and I get to bag one or two otherwise unheard-of Munros. Runs I've got lined up in the next few weeks are a circumnavigation of Loch Arkaig, which I've wanted to do for ages for some reason, and the Pentland Skyline race down in Edinburgh. Psyche.

Mainly, though, its an excuse to wear short shorts and lycra.