A new one for us but in its fourth year now, this event is getting good reviews each year as a good friendly but low key multi day type with the emphasis on good areas, well mapped with challenging courses
As a logical link between the WOC sprint champs in Edinburgh where we were last week and just before the start of Croeso next week It was an obvious choice. A quick motorway journey to Glasgow from Edinburgh then a couple hours up the west coast brought us to Lochgilphead, the nearest ‘town’ ( by West of Scotland standards) to the three nearby venues, all in the Knapdale forest
The forest was planted in the 1960s and has never been harvested since, so there’s no rides, no brashings, just clean (almost) runnable forest albeit with many areas of very dense conifers with sharp scratchy ( and potentially dangerous to one’s eyes) low branches ( think Fernworthy on steroids!)
My long course was 4.5km with 220m of climb. The going was very tough physically throughout with lung busting climbs, treacherous descents, crags, boulders, the lot- all with very much reduced visibility under the thick canopy
Fortunately the weather was, and has been here very dry and warm and the forest was in perfect condition- that said, my middle distance 4.5km course took over 90 mins, and there were plenty of people out a lot longer than that…
Another middle distance tomorrow then a final long event on day three ( nearly 9km) which I’m hoping will take less than 3 hours to complete
My course today below - R did the medium course, 1km less and ‘enjoyed’ just over two hours of forest entertainment
Looks awesome! It looks like great quality mapping - Martin Bagness (our age group) must have legs of steel. It would be interesting to see some route choices eg between 5 and 6 if on Routegadget. I imagine Wales will feel like Longrun Meadow for you two after this 
Looks a bit like Slovenia lol
Day2 ( long course 4.7km 220m)
Just got back to the van in the campsite at Lochgilphead- we opted to cycle each day to and from the venues as both are tiny communities with limited (no) parking for competitors- most opted to use the bus transfer service provided as an extra
Yesterdays cycle in the sun of about 6miles along the Crinan Canal towpath was a delight- today’s in the pouring rain retraced most of the previous route then added a nice up and over road and back down to Achnamara village hall at sea level total distance about 10 miles
Today’s area was a beast- even regular Scots in the crowd who are used to this terrain commented how physical it was- about 50% was green and covered in contours- to be honest I struggled from the start seeming to have no energy and an inability for accuracy which obviously was counterproductive. I managed the first 12 of 16 controls in around 1hr 45 but then spent an age searching for but never finding the next one- I eventually gave up and baled to a track running southwards towards the finish visiting my last two controls on the way to the finish kite
Not too happy about this result but definitely got my money’s worth and good experience for future events on this type of terrain
I’ve already decided to abandon my original entry on the long course tomorrow ( the final day and a long format one) as to be honest I’ll really struggle to complete a 9km course over the same area in anything approaching a reasonable time( the venue is the same as today) favouring the medium course instead……
R surpassed herself being the last person back ( 2.5 hours inc one leg over an hour) with me defending her experience and ability to the organisers who were keen to send out a search party of young control collectors to find her 
What a strange way to pass a day our sport is…
Day3- the last of the trilogy
Back to the forest at Achnamara for a long distance final day. Gratefully picking up my medium map ( having dropped from the long course thankfully) it was obviously going to be another ‘engaging’ course as the map was now 10000 scale and most of it was green. It basically extended the day2 map further east into the more ‘challenging’ part of the forest and introduced some nice long legs ( checkout my leg 2-3 below- I went direct for the challenge and took about 40mins- on reflection I could have halved that if I’d gone se from #2 to the path bend, then E and around the rocky spur and S to the next path, then all the way around the grotty next bit and off into the last bit of forest- easy)
As it was I completed the course with relatively little error in just over 2 hours- exhausting and later removed 6 ticks from myself.
We then had a 6 hour drive down to Cheshire where we staying overnight with R’s sister before the final drive to S Wales for the start of Croeso
All in all this was a technical and very physical event well organised but with minimal organisation on each day in a beautiful part of Scotland- we will certainly consider it again as an option next summer if it fits in to the calendar
what a stunning landscape , fell running territory , its nice to challenge yourself and sometimes get out of your comfort zone. congratulations on completing the 3 days .