This is the third time we’ve entered the Antonine Trail Race. You can read the previous reports, including race description, here (2017) and here (2018).

This year the challenge was to run faster and try and best two hours, a challenge made much harder by forgetting my watch. D’oh! It’s very hard to race against the clock when you forget the clock!

The race is well organised with a good t-shirt, an environmentally friendly water policy (bring your own bottle), decent grub at the finish and a route that provides a decent off road challenge along with some cracking views along the front of the Campsies. And, for those that love mud, it provides more mud than a tabloid journalist. Though I have to confess that most of that mud might have come from an unexpected detour.

“Do you know where we’re going?” I asked Iain.

“Yes,” he said, “there’s another runner up ahead.”

The only runner I could see was off to one side, through a bank of trees and running along what appeared to be a nice dry path. We were running in the middle of a field that could had so much water it could only be used to grow rice.

My foot disappears into the earth. Euuugh!

“Who are you following?” I ask.

“Him,” says Iain, pointing at man in the wood.

“That what are we doing running across a field!?”

“He must have taken the wrong way!”

Someone took the wrong way, and I don’t think it was the man in the wood!

A couple of miles later we see another man with a number on his chest run towards us.

“I went the wrong way,” he said, “took a little detour!”

Which just goes to show it can happen to anyone, and we weren’t the only ones to end up in the wrong place, however it was ever so slightly dispiriting to find that even with his detour he then overtook us and ran over the horizon. Lapped by someone going the wrong way, that’s a new first.

Despite that, we finished in under two hours and I was happy to finish with a new personal best.

Barra is so beautiful it has the nickname Barradise. Unfortunately, today the weather was much like a Remainer’s view of the UK’s economic prospects after Brexit – bleak. Rain was battering the window and the wind was gusting to 40mph.

This was not good news for the cyclists. My wife’s sister does not like to ride a bike if the wind is gusting stronger than 30mph. When I saw her, she asked how windy it was. I did what any caring support crewmember would do. I lied. I told her it was windy but only 10 mph. I then added – it looks nice outside. It did not. It looked like the scene in Wizard of Oz when Dorothy’s house was blown away.

The start point of the Hebridean Way is in Vattersay. Which is six miles from Castlebay along a one way road. Traffic can go both ways but I call it one-way because the only way back is the one-way I came.

Thankfully, the rain had stopped by the time we gathered outside the B & B to start the adventure. I took some photos to mark the occasion. My wife and her sister started cycling. The rain immediately restarted. The first 10 minutes of riding was so wet Noah would have taken it as a sign to gather animals on to his boat two by two. I could have ridden with them but instead I choose the warmth and comfort of my car.

It took 45 minutes to bike to the start. Only 15 minutes by warm dry car. I thought it would be busy at the start considering all the cyclists we had seen on the boat but there was no one there, except for one German man. He was standing at the start looking a little lost. I said hello but he ran away.

I took some more photos to mark the occasion. As you can see from the picture. I wore a wetsuit for the occasion. Which meant I was the only one suitably attired for the Hebridean rain. 

They headed off whilst I drove to the ferry terminal that would take us to the next island – Eriskay.

I had an hour to kill once I got there so I was able to ride my bike until they turned up.

The ferry to Eriskay takes 40 minutes. There was a nice café in the ferry terminal. I had a fruit scone. A dog jumped up and tried to scoff it. I shouted “NO!” to try to deter the beast but it didn’t stop. The dog’s owner turned to me and said “The dog won’t hear you. He’s deaf”

“How do you know he’s deaf?” I replied.

“I sneak up behind him and shout but the dog doesn’t notice.”. Which seems a harsh test. Imagine sneaking up behind people and shouting loudly. Anyone not deaf will die of fright!

On the ferry journey we spotted some dolphins. Which made me think that if Africa has the big five then the Hebrides should too. My suggestion is

1. Dolphins
2. Golden Eagle
3. Eriskay Ponies
4. Otters
5. Seals

You would think there is less chance of death from meeting them than meeting the African big five but you would be wrong.

My wife crashed her bike when she spotted what she thought was a Golden Eagle. It wasn’t. She spent the rest of that day muttering about her sore leg and the face that “it was only a buzzard!”

Golden eagles are hard to spot. I know this because I once visited a RSPB hut. (Yes – I realise that last sentence is not very rock and roll but I am cool. Honest!)

In the hut bird-spotter’s record, in a book, what they have seen. One person had written “Golden Eagle” but next to it, someone else had written, “No you fucking didn’t”

Which proves Golden Eagles are hard to spot.

I always take my trainers with me on holiday. I have this idea that I’ll go for a run when I’m away. That it’ll be a chance to explore a new city or town and get a fresh perspective of where I am. Yet, every time I come home, I find my trainers have reminded firmly in a well wrapped bag.

(The bag has to be well wrapped as trainers, well, there’s no,other way to say this, STINK. And the very last thing you want to do is place your trainers tightly in with all your fresh holiday clothes in a closed bag because soon everything will smell of your feet…eugh!)

This year I decided that there was no point planning a holiday run. I was going to be away for two weeks, I had to bring hiking boots and taking a pair of trainers too felt like I’d be using too much space for footwear I would only use for a few hours, if that.

And, if I didn’t take my trainers, I wouldn’t feel guilty about not going for a run. You can’t feel guilty if you can’t actually do something. Just like I don’t feel guilty about not going to the moon, painting a stunning landscape or eating beatroot (it’s purple – only bruises and dinosaurs are purple!).

But, when I started to pack I realised I would have space for trainers if I wore my hiking boots onto the plane. If I didn’t pack,them, but wore them instead, I’d free up both space and weight. And then I thought, why not take my trainers but instead of thinking I should go for a run I would only aim to cover a mile instead: The Holiday Mile. A simple goal, less than 10 minutes and it would meet my goal of seeing more than just a hotel in wherever we stayed but would also be short enough that it didn’t feel like an imposition during the holiday. It would be over and done before breakfast.

And, as it turned out, if I went out for that first mile, I would also carry on if I was enjoying it.

Perfect

So, here then are my Holiday Miles for Dubai and Uganda.

Dubai

And all I can say is…

Don’t do it! I mean really, really don’t do it. I tried my holiday mile at the end of September when the temperature was 42 degrees and it was horrible. That’s not running, that’s cooking.

Also, I ran on the beach so I didn’t even use my trainers.

But apart from that, I was happy the Holiday Mile worked. I got out, I ran, And if I can do it on what felt like the surface of a barbecue then it can be done anywhere. Places like…

Kampala

One worry when running abroad is what happens if you get lost. It’s easy to do, you don’t know the area and signs may either be in other languages, other alphabets or non-existant. You might decide not run just because you don’t know where you are. What if you’re ina bad area of town?

That was my worry in Kampala, in Uganda. It was my first time in Central Africa and I didn’t know where one neighbourhood starts and another ends. Each road was either dirt track or basic tarmac and we were staying next to Lake Victoria and open ground. Luckily, I’d brought my Garmin watch with me and was keen to try out a new feature – Trackback, which would give you directions back to the start of your run.

I hoped not to use it. I thought I’d have a good sense of direction and was marking street corners in my head as I ran but, when I turned round, I managed to miss two turnings and ended up at the top of a hill next to a school and with no memory of seeing it before. I knew I was lost. This wasn’t the way I had come. But I had Trackback.

I switched it on, my watch showed a small map of the route I’d ran and an arrow point telling which direction to go. It then beeped when I ran passed a road I should have ran down and it warned me every time I ran in the wrong direction. It was brilliant. And I’ll forgive Garmin their dodgy straps – see Challenge Roth Swim – just for this function.

And, even better, I’d actually run two miles. A double Holiday Mile.

Why not try the Holiday Mile the next time you go away?