The Isles Ultra, 22 - 27 September
Report by Matt Holt
The Isles Ultra is a 6 day, 185 miles long Ratrace event, covering The Hebridean Way, a course of 156 miles (252 km) plus an extra 29 miles on the last day to the most northern tip of the Isles.
The route goes through 10 islands, crosses 6 causeways and includes two stunning ferry journeys. The route varies from beeches to roads to off-road trails. The off-road sections were extremely boggy with no real paths to follow. At these points, the gpx files issued by Ratrace, were not on any trail either, so we had to make our own route when the way markers were non-existent. This made the sections un-runnable, with ankle / shin deep bog sections for 5 to 6 miles long at a time, often taking hours to cover, starting on the island of Vatersay and ending in Stornoway on island number 10 (Lewis), then on to Ness Point.
This is at times a challenging route with the weather in the Outer Hebrides famously changeable – very often we experienced all four seasons in one day. In summary, I completed the following mileage and elevation per day:
- Day 1: 35 miles / 3100 foot
- Day 2: 38 miles / 1800 foot
- Day 3: 18 miles / 3200 foot
- Day 4: 26 miles / 3500 foot
- Day 5: 26 miles / 2200 foot
- Day 6: 29 miles / 2200 foot
Day 3 was cut short due to a storm, meaning we had to catch the earlier ferry and miss off approximately 10 miles.