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-Ya! -They told me it would be fun and easy. | 0:00:28 | 0:00:32 | |
Hello and a very warm welcome to The Adventure Show. | 0:00:32 | 0:00:35 | |
This month Loch Tay is the centrepiece | 0:00:35 | 0:00:37 | |
for the Artemis Great Kindrochit Quadrathlon. | 0:00:37 | 0:00:41 | |
Competitors are here for almost 60 miles of swimming, mountain running, | 0:00:41 | 0:00:45 | |
kayaking and cycling through this glorious and majestic landscape. | 0:00:45 | 0:00:49 | |
Fresh as a daisy. | 0:00:49 | 0:00:51 | |
Just brilliant. | 0:00:51 | 0:00:52 | |
You couldn't get better, could you? | 0:00:52 | 0:00:54 | |
No-one told me I was putting my life at risk. | 0:00:54 | 0:00:57 | |
It all starts with a swim across the full width of Loch Tay, | 0:00:57 | 0:01:01 | |
before the racers head up into these hills, | 0:01:01 | 0:01:04 | |
where they'll run 15 miles over no less than seven Munros. | 0:01:04 | 0:01:08 | |
It's a massive day out by any standard. | 0:01:08 | 0:01:10 | |
But this is just one element of today's race. | 0:01:10 | 0:01:14 | |
This event attracts everyone | 0:01:14 | 0:01:16 | |
from weekend warriors to hardened endurance athletes | 0:01:16 | 0:01:19 | |
and they come from right across the UK to Highland Perthshire. | 0:01:19 | 0:01:23 | |
Some competitors will spend ten hours in the hills, | 0:01:23 | 0:01:27 | |
before taking to the water for a seven-mile paddle up the loch. | 0:01:27 | 0:01:30 | |
Then there's the final leg, a 34-mile cycle around Loch Tay. | 0:01:31 | 0:01:36 | |
Now, this event requires a huge range of skills - | 0:01:36 | 0:01:39 | |
mountain experience, biking prowess and ability in and on the water. | 0:01:39 | 0:01:44 | |
But make no mistake about it, | 0:01:44 | 0:01:46 | |
this is a monster challenge for everybody. | 0:01:46 | 0:01:48 | |
High five. | 0:01:48 | 0:01:50 | |
The view was amazing. | 0:01:50 | 0:01:51 | |
But you have to keep moving, you have to keep moving. | 0:01:51 | 0:01:54 | |
-How you doing? -Tired. | 0:01:54 | 0:01:55 | |
There's intense rivalry in the 2017 Kindrochit Quadrathlon. | 0:01:56 | 0:02:01 | |
Everyone races in teams of two and last year's winners, | 0:02:01 | 0:02:04 | |
Drew Sharkey and Sean McFarlane, | 0:02:04 | 0:02:06 | |
are back, but they're competing in different teams | 0:02:06 | 0:02:10 | |
and only one of them can come first. | 0:02:10 | 0:02:12 | |
I think there's been a bit of a miscommunication between | 0:02:12 | 0:02:15 | |
me and Drew Sharkey. He is a good friend and hopefully still is. | 0:02:15 | 0:02:18 | |
He is racing with Stuart Macleod, | 0:02:18 | 0:02:19 | |
who's a very good athlete, and I'm racing with Andy, | 0:02:19 | 0:02:21 | |
so it's going to be fascinating having a main competitor team | 0:02:21 | 0:02:26 | |
composed of someone that I've raced with and seen him at his best | 0:02:26 | 0:02:29 | |
and at his worst, so it's going to be fascinating. | 0:02:29 | 0:02:32 | |
It's been a marriage break-up. | 0:02:32 | 0:02:33 | |
-Yeah. -I mean, it's been better, quite clearly. -Yeah. | 0:02:33 | 0:02:36 | |
We're still going through the courts to see who gets the kids at the | 0:02:36 | 0:02:39 | |
moment. A lot could depend on the result. | 0:02:39 | 0:02:42 | |
But these two teams aren't the only show in town. | 0:02:42 | 0:02:45 | |
For many years, Paul Daccus and Stuart Gregory have competed | 0:02:45 | 0:02:48 | |
together in the Kindrochit. | 0:02:48 | 0:02:50 | |
They came second last year, just three minutes behind Sean and Drew. | 0:02:50 | 0:02:55 | |
I think we are running out of time now in terms of years, | 0:02:55 | 0:02:57 | |
so five years later we still haven't managed to win this. | 0:02:57 | 0:03:01 | |
We've had a second and a third. | 0:03:01 | 0:03:03 | |
But, look, it's the sort of race where you never really know. | 0:03:03 | 0:03:06 | |
There are so many variables in terms of the weather, the route, | 0:03:06 | 0:03:10 | |
you just have to get out there, try your best and see what happens. | 0:03:10 | 0:03:14 | |
-Aye-aye. Hi. -So this year is all set for a classic | 0:03:14 | 0:03:18 | |
Kindrochit Quadrathlon. | 0:03:18 | 0:03:20 | |
Later in this month's Adventure Show, | 0:03:20 | 0:03:21 | |
Duncan takes to his wheels in search of an amazing challenge | 0:03:21 | 0:03:25 | |
in Scotland's last great wilderness. | 0:03:25 | 0:03:28 | |
Seems like the perfect way to spoil a good hill walk, by carrying this | 0:03:28 | 0:03:32 | |
thing up here. | 0:03:32 | 0:03:34 | |
This is a pretty mad scheme. | 0:03:34 | 0:03:37 | |
And film-maker Dan Bell | 0:03:37 | 0:03:39 | |
shows why there's nowhere better than Scotland for adventure. | 0:03:39 | 0:03:43 | |
The whole river is on this massive big rock slab, which makes the | 0:03:43 | 0:03:47 | |
perfect natural flume. | 0:03:47 | 0:03:48 | |
It's like the best aqua park in Scotland. | 0:03:48 | 0:03:50 | |
But first to the Kindrochit Quadrathlon. | 0:03:54 | 0:03:57 | |
It's coming up to six o'clock in the morning | 0:03:57 | 0:03:59 | |
and competitors are getting ready to hit that chilly water. | 0:03:59 | 0:04:03 | |
How are you feeling? Have you done lots of training? | 0:04:03 | 0:04:05 | |
Done some training, wishing I'd done a little bit more at this stage, | 0:04:05 | 0:04:08 | |
but I'm sure it's going to be a great day. | 0:04:08 | 0:04:10 | |
Yeah, pretty excited last night, | 0:04:10 | 0:04:12 | |
but I'll be honest it's been replaced with nervousness now, so, | 0:04:12 | 0:04:14 | |
looking forward to getting across, really, and then hitting the Munros. | 0:04:14 | 0:04:17 | |
Good morning, ladies, good morning. How we doing? How we feeling? | 0:04:17 | 0:04:20 | |
Terrified, to be honest. So Fern's done all the training | 0:04:20 | 0:04:22 | |
-and I've done none. -I've trained for two. | 0:04:22 | 0:04:25 | |
Yeah, that's how it works! | 0:04:25 | 0:04:27 | |
Because of the popularity of this event, competitors set off in | 0:04:27 | 0:04:31 | |
two waves, one at six o'clock in the morning and one at seven. | 0:04:31 | 0:04:34 | |
Now, the fastest racers could be in either wave, | 0:04:34 | 0:04:38 | |
so it makes for an intriguing tactical challenge. | 0:04:38 | 0:04:41 | |
-Nine, eight, seven... -And here they go. | 0:04:41 | 0:04:43 | |
..six, five, four, three, two, one... | 0:04:43 | 0:04:48 | |
CHEERING | 0:04:48 | 0:04:51 | |
And the first wave of the Kindrochit Quadrathlon 2017 is underway. | 0:04:51 | 0:04:57 | |
Ahead of them, 57 miles of swimming, hill running, kayaking, | 0:04:57 | 0:05:02 | |
then cycling round Loch Tay. | 0:05:02 | 0:05:05 | |
The day ahead will be glorious and long, | 0:05:05 | 0:05:08 | |
but it's all about keeping it calm just now | 0:05:08 | 0:05:11 | |
and getting across the other side. | 0:05:11 | 0:05:13 | |
I can swim. I can swim. | 0:05:14 | 0:05:16 | |
But I've never been really strong, | 0:05:17 | 0:05:18 | |
so the last few months I have been practising | 0:05:18 | 0:05:21 | |
and building up speed, so fingers crossed I make it across. | 0:05:21 | 0:05:24 | |
This time last year I couldn't swim a length, | 0:05:26 | 0:05:28 | |
so I'm a bit nervous about the temperature. | 0:05:28 | 0:05:30 | |
I think I can do the distance but I'm nervous about the temperature. | 0:05:30 | 0:05:33 | |
We swam in a quarry two weeks ago as a test and that was quite scary, | 0:05:33 | 0:05:36 | |
but hopefully we've got over it a little bit. | 0:05:36 | 0:05:39 | |
Yeah, you're very aware that there's nothing below you, but... | 0:05:39 | 0:05:42 | |
It was actually OK with the wetsuits and stuff, | 0:05:42 | 0:05:44 | |
it's quite buoyant so we shouldn't sink, hopefully. | 0:05:44 | 0:05:48 | |
First out of the water is Jamie McLeod. | 0:05:49 | 0:05:51 | |
He's taken just 20 minutes to get across the loch. | 0:05:51 | 0:05:54 | |
-Ah! -Cold? -That's fresh. | 0:05:54 | 0:05:58 | |
Shall I do it again? | 0:05:58 | 0:05:59 | |
-Yeah, yeah. Perfect. -So that's our first swimmer out. | 0:05:59 | 0:06:02 | |
It's a very, very good swim. | 0:06:02 | 0:06:04 | |
And the mass of people have now spread out all across the loch. | 0:06:04 | 0:06:08 | |
The last swimmers are at least 400 metres, if not more, from the end, | 0:06:08 | 0:06:13 | |
so now the transition to the run up the hillside and to get away from | 0:06:13 | 0:06:17 | |
the terrible midges. | 0:06:17 | 0:06:18 | |
You must be pretty pleased. It was about 20 minutes. | 0:06:19 | 0:06:22 | |
Yeah, that's what I was aiming for, but minus the cold. | 0:06:22 | 0:06:25 | |
It takes five or six minutes to get used to it, | 0:06:25 | 0:06:27 | |
and then just head down. | 0:06:27 | 0:06:29 | |
Hopefully the shore gets a bit closer as you go. | 0:06:29 | 0:06:31 | |
It looks like you need the hot drink after this swim. | 0:06:31 | 0:06:34 | |
Yeah, I haven't got a lot of fat, | 0:06:34 | 0:06:36 | |
so I do need something warm to warm me up. | 0:06:36 | 0:06:38 | |
-Hi! -So you can see that the first swimmers of the first wave coming | 0:06:38 | 0:06:41 | |
out now. Look in good shape. | 0:06:41 | 0:06:43 | |
But for many, they will be in the water for at least another 20 or 30 | 0:06:44 | 0:06:48 | |
minutes. And it's cold, | 0:06:48 | 0:06:49 | |
it's really cold, so the transition from swimming to now the hill run or | 0:06:49 | 0:06:54 | |
the hill walk, fast hill walk, is pretty difficult for some people | 0:06:54 | 0:06:57 | |
and it's something they'll have to manage for the first four of five | 0:06:57 | 0:07:00 | |
minutes when they come out of the water and change into the hill gear. | 0:07:00 | 0:07:03 | |
That was nice and cold. | 0:07:03 | 0:07:05 | |
It's a shock when you first get into the water. | 0:07:05 | 0:07:08 | |
You can hardly speak because your... | 0:07:08 | 0:07:09 | |
Everything just kind of seizes up but | 0:07:09 | 0:07:11 | |
there's obviously the adrenaline and the kind of buzz of doing the event | 0:07:11 | 0:07:14 | |
-as well. -So with the early starters now heading up into the hills, | 0:07:14 | 0:07:18 | |
it's time for the second wave of swimmers to take to the water. | 0:07:18 | 0:07:22 | |
-How are you feeling? -Incredible! | 0:07:22 | 0:07:24 | |
-Yeah! -Excited? | 0:07:24 | 0:07:25 | |
Very excited! When am I ever going to be escorted across the loch by | 0:07:25 | 0:07:30 | |
millions of kayaks and other totally ripped men? | 0:07:30 | 0:07:33 | |
So I'm feeling pretty excited. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:35 | |
This is the second wave of the Kindrochit Quadrathlon 2017. | 0:07:35 | 0:07:39 | |
Interestingly, this is a bigger wave than the first wave. | 0:07:41 | 0:07:44 | |
First went off at six o'clock in the morning, it's now just approaching | 0:07:44 | 0:07:47 | |
seven o'clock. | 0:07:47 | 0:07:49 | |
Sean McFarlane and Andy Gray there. | 0:07:49 | 0:07:51 | |
This is always the tricky bit. | 0:07:51 | 0:07:52 | |
Interestingly, Andy and Sean just keeping themselves away from | 0:07:52 | 0:07:55 | |
everybody else, just going out to the outside, | 0:07:55 | 0:07:58 | |
because as soon as the race starts, | 0:07:58 | 0:08:01 | |
the water will turn into a boiling cauldron of knees, elbows, | 0:08:01 | 0:08:05 | |
arms and you will not see very much at all. | 0:08:05 | 0:08:08 | |
And quite interestingly, | 0:08:09 | 0:08:10 | |
Drew Sharkey and Stuart Macleod are at the other side of the start line. | 0:08:10 | 0:08:16 | |
Here we go! The second wave of the Artemis Kindrochit Quadrathlon | 0:08:17 | 0:08:24 | |
2017... CHEERING | 0:08:24 | 0:08:26 | |
..is off and running. | 0:08:26 | 0:08:28 | |
One of the great things about the Kindrochit Quadrathlon is | 0:08:30 | 0:08:32 | |
the piper leads you across the water, so if the wind isn't blowing, | 0:08:32 | 0:08:36 | |
you can actually listen to where the | 0:08:36 | 0:08:37 | |
piper is and he'll be going in the right direction. | 0:08:37 | 0:08:41 | |
Ahead of them, | 0:08:44 | 0:08:46 | |
0.8 of a mile swim, | 0:08:46 | 0:08:48 | |
15 mile run over the hills, | 0:08:48 | 0:08:50 | |
with seven Munros and then a long kayak up the length of Loch Tay, | 0:08:50 | 0:08:55 | |
then 34 miles on the bike around Loch Tay to finish off. | 0:08:55 | 0:09:01 | |
It's a huge day, it's a fantastic day. | 0:09:01 | 0:09:04 | |
The fastest swimmers from wave two are just leaving the water and going | 0:09:06 | 0:09:09 | |
into the transition before they head up onto the hills. | 0:09:09 | 0:09:13 | |
They're cold, so they'll need a bit of time to change from cold | 0:09:13 | 0:09:16 | |
swimming legs to warm running legs, but soon they'll be up on the tops. | 0:09:16 | 0:09:20 | |
The toughest phase is the hills. You can actually see them all now, | 0:09:21 | 0:09:23 | |
a wonderful view of the hills, | 0:09:23 | 0:09:25 | |
and that seven Munros over about 16 miles and that'll take anywhere | 0:09:25 | 0:09:29 | |
from two and a half for the quickest to up to about seven, eight, | 0:09:29 | 0:09:32 | |
nine hours, depending on how quick they are. | 0:09:32 | 0:09:34 | |
And we've got the Tayside Mountain Rescue manning all the Munros. | 0:09:34 | 0:09:38 | |
Each one has a dibber at the top, so with SPORTident, | 0:09:38 | 0:09:41 | |
they get checked in. | 0:09:41 | 0:09:42 | |
Granny at home can even monitor on the internet. | 0:09:42 | 0:09:44 | |
I'm at the bealach between the first two Munros, | 0:09:46 | 0:09:49 | |
Meall Greigh and Meall Garbh. | 0:09:49 | 0:09:51 | |
The runners will be here soon, | 0:09:51 | 0:09:53 | |
but it's also a bit complicated because they start in two waves | 0:09:53 | 0:09:56 | |
an hour apart. So we won't actually know who's in the lead till much | 0:09:56 | 0:10:00 | |
later in the day. | 0:10:00 | 0:10:02 | |
How's the race going for you? | 0:10:02 | 0:10:03 | |
Very well, indeed. I'm having a bit of a birthday trek for my friend | 0:10:03 | 0:10:08 | |
-down here. -OK. | 0:10:08 | 0:10:09 | |
So, I'm making sure we get plenty of happy snaps for him and his family. | 0:10:09 | 0:10:12 | |
-OK, great. -But fantastic. | 0:10:12 | 0:10:14 | |
Is this a big birthday, or...? | 0:10:14 | 0:10:16 | |
-Big birthday? -Yeah! | 0:10:16 | 0:10:18 | |
-Well, not big. -Big enough. | 0:10:18 | 0:10:19 | |
-This is big enough. -Big minus two. -THEY LAUGH | 0:10:19 | 0:10:22 | |
Why are you doing this for your birthday? | 0:10:22 | 0:10:24 | |
-Cos it's fun! -SHE LAUGHS | 0:10:24 | 0:10:26 | |
It's good craic. See you, guys. Cheerio! | 0:10:26 | 0:10:28 | |
Well done. Have a great day. | 0:10:28 | 0:10:30 | |
It's not really a run, it's a mountain stage. | 0:10:30 | 0:10:32 | |
You're actually up there, it's a forced march | 0:10:32 | 0:10:34 | |
and so I think once you get up high, | 0:10:34 | 0:10:37 | |
it's going to be a lot easier mentally, as well. | 0:10:37 | 0:10:39 | |
Knowing what you're doing | 0:10:39 | 0:10:41 | |
and then being flexible is the way forward. | 0:10:41 | 0:10:43 | |
What's the worst that can happen? It can take you a bit longer, | 0:10:43 | 0:10:45 | |
you have to take a little bit of a break and figure out what you're | 0:10:45 | 0:10:48 | |
going to do next. If you feel good for one minute, | 0:10:48 | 0:10:50 | |
you're going to feel bad for the next. If you feel bad, you're going | 0:10:50 | 0:10:53 | |
to feel good, so the key thing is get your head down, keep on going, | 0:10:53 | 0:10:55 | |
one step after the other, and you'll be fine. | 0:10:55 | 0:10:57 | |
Hi, girls, how are you doing? | 0:10:57 | 0:10:59 | |
-Hello! -Hello! -You're doing great, first female team through. | 0:10:59 | 0:11:03 | |
-That's brilliant! -Yeah, it's good! | 0:11:03 | 0:11:04 | |
It's such a nice day! | 0:11:04 | 0:11:06 | |
-Wonderful. -Fastest swim of both of our lives, so... | 0:11:06 | 0:11:09 | |
-Is it? -Yeah. -That's good. -And it was beautiful, clear water. | 0:11:09 | 0:11:12 | |
So you're both smiling just now. Is this going to be like this all day | 0:11:12 | 0:11:15 | |
-or is it going to...? -It could be make or break for our friendship, | 0:11:15 | 0:11:18 | |
I feel. But it's going well so far. | 0:11:18 | 0:11:20 | |
All the women's teams started the race at six o'clock, | 0:11:20 | 0:11:23 | |
and Emily Lester and Fern Adams are the fastest so far. | 0:11:23 | 0:11:27 | |
This race is not just about fitness and stamina. | 0:11:27 | 0:11:31 | |
Teamwork is vital. | 0:11:31 | 0:11:32 | |
Emily and Fern met in Cambridge and have been friends ever since. | 0:11:32 | 0:11:37 | |
We've got a really good rapport, Emily and I. | 0:11:37 | 0:11:39 | |
We've been friends for a long, long time. | 0:11:39 | 0:11:41 | |
-Yeah. -We've had some real low points together. | 0:11:41 | 0:11:43 | |
We've been through horrendous exams together, so, I think, yeah, | 0:11:43 | 0:11:46 | |
-we've got a history of that. -We might have a small fall-out, | 0:11:46 | 0:11:49 | |
but we'll get over it, we'll carry on. | 0:11:49 | 0:11:51 | |
And we tend to oscillate, | 0:11:51 | 0:11:52 | |
so I'll be at a high point when Emily's at a low point, usually. | 0:11:52 | 0:11:55 | |
-Yeah. -So we'll pull each other through. It'll be fine. -Yeah. | 0:11:55 | 0:11:57 | |
But Lydia Ashby and Alice Parsons from London | 0:11:57 | 0:12:00 | |
are just a couple of | 0:12:00 | 0:12:01 | |
minutes behind and they say they've got a love-hate relationship to | 0:12:01 | 0:12:05 | |
-teamwork. -Hello! | 0:12:05 | 0:12:07 | |
Hello, how are you doing? | 0:12:07 | 0:12:08 | |
-Come have a chat, then! -Oh! | 0:12:08 | 0:12:10 | |
-Oh, no! -I think we will never stop if we start talking. | 0:12:10 | 0:12:14 | |
I think we'll definitely be friends. | 0:12:14 | 0:12:16 | |
-Yeah! -There might be a few moments en route where it's like, "Shut up," | 0:12:16 | 0:12:19 | |
-and then it will be fine. We'll be 100% friends. -If I don't like her, | 0:12:19 | 0:12:21 | |
I'll push her back down the mountain. | 0:12:21 | 0:12:24 | |
Meanwhile, with that hour separating the two swimming waves, | 0:12:24 | 0:12:27 | |
transition is still a hive of activity. | 0:12:27 | 0:12:30 | |
-How was your swim? -It was OK. | 0:12:30 | 0:12:33 | |
It was a bit competitive at the start, a few elbows flying around, | 0:12:33 | 0:12:37 | |
but, yeah, I just took it easy. Survived. | 0:12:37 | 0:12:40 | |
-That's main thing. -Are you looking forward to the hill? | 0:12:40 | 0:12:42 | |
Yeah, of course. Look at the scenery. | 0:12:42 | 0:12:45 | |
Any experience in Scottish mountains before? | 0:12:45 | 0:12:47 | |
No. No Scottish one. No. | 0:12:47 | 0:12:49 | |
French one, Austrian one, but I will be enjoying it. | 0:12:49 | 0:12:54 | |
Lovely people, lovely scenery, so just enjoy. | 0:12:54 | 0:12:58 | |
-How you doing? -Cold, very cold. | 0:12:58 | 0:13:00 | |
Thank you. Have a good one. | 0:13:00 | 0:13:02 | |
-Running for the camera! -Yeah! -THEY LAUGH | 0:13:02 | 0:13:05 | |
For both waves, the swim is now over. | 0:13:05 | 0:13:08 | |
But that's just the appetiser | 0:13:08 | 0:13:10 | |
in today's Great Kindrochit Quadrathlon. | 0:13:10 | 0:13:12 | |
We're taking a break from the action here at Loch Tay but we'll be back | 0:13:13 | 0:13:17 | |
to see how everyone gets on with the run, the kayak and the bike shortly. | 0:13:17 | 0:13:21 | |
Right now, Duncan's off to the north-west for a journey through | 0:13:30 | 0:13:34 | |
the wild, isolated landscape between Kinlochewe in the south, | 0:13:34 | 0:13:37 | |
Gairloch in the west and Dundonnell in the north. | 0:13:37 | 0:13:41 | |
And he's set himself a challenge that will test him and his bike to | 0:13:41 | 0:13:44 | |
-the limit. -This is the start of what's called the Great Wilderness | 0:13:44 | 0:13:48 | |
and about 18km along this track is a remote Munro called Sgurr Ban. | 0:13:48 | 0:13:54 | |
This one will be a bit of an adventure. | 0:13:54 | 0:13:55 | |
Ahead is a two-day bikepacking journey combining mountain biking | 0:13:56 | 0:14:01 | |
with camping, carrying everything he needs on the bike. | 0:14:01 | 0:14:04 | |
It's an adventure on two wheels. | 0:14:04 | 0:14:07 | |
The mountain bike is a revelation. | 0:14:07 | 0:14:09 | |
It can take you out to these incredibly wild places and you can | 0:14:09 | 0:14:13 | |
go far and quite fast. | 0:14:13 | 0:14:14 | |
And the reward is this. | 0:14:15 | 0:14:17 | |
This is remote, beautiful and quite extraordinary. | 0:14:18 | 0:14:24 | |
You never know how deep those things are. | 0:14:27 | 0:14:29 | |
I first camped in these sorts of places when I would have been about | 0:14:31 | 0:14:36 | |
12 or 13. | 0:14:36 | 0:14:38 | |
I started climbing to escape Sundays in the house. | 0:14:38 | 0:14:43 | |
Started hill walking | 0:14:44 | 0:14:46 | |
and the first-ever real kind of wilderness camping experience | 0:14:46 | 0:14:51 | |
was behind Stac Pollaidh. | 0:14:51 | 0:14:53 | |
And that was great. | 0:14:53 | 0:14:54 | |
So you can see behind that I've just left the loch and now the track | 0:14:55 | 0:15:00 | |
disappears into the wilderness. | 0:15:00 | 0:15:02 | |
It's still quite good. It's certainly cyclable for as far as | 0:15:02 | 0:15:05 | |
I can see and I can just start seeing the mountain I want to do, | 0:15:05 | 0:15:09 | |
Sgurr Ban, just around this corner. | 0:15:09 | 0:15:11 | |
No idea what's ahead, no idea what the track's like. | 0:15:11 | 0:15:14 | |
Now it gets interesting. | 0:15:14 | 0:15:15 | |
What's really nice about camping wild is that with this lightweight | 0:15:19 | 0:15:24 | |
gear you really can go pretty far | 0:15:24 | 0:15:28 | |
without the effort that it used to be. | 0:15:28 | 0:15:31 | |
Gives you a lot more freedom to get out there... | 0:15:32 | 0:15:35 | |
..and to wake up - on a good day - | 0:15:36 | 0:15:39 | |
with an amazing view, in an amazing place like this. | 0:15:39 | 0:15:42 | |
Duncan's heading right into the heart of the Letterewe wilderness | 0:15:43 | 0:15:47 | |
to camp by Loch an Nid at the foot of Sgurr Ban. | 0:15:47 | 0:15:50 | |
It's nearly ten miles from the nearest road | 0:15:50 | 0:15:53 | |
and the riding is challenging. | 0:15:53 | 0:15:55 | |
HE PANTS | 0:15:55 | 0:15:58 | |
Definitely now time for wet feet. | 0:15:58 | 0:15:59 | |
Things have definitely become a little bit tougher. | 0:16:01 | 0:16:04 | |
No track at all and then forcing my way through this bog. | 0:16:04 | 0:16:09 | |
And it's amazing how much you use the bike to lean on and the brakes | 0:16:09 | 0:16:13 | |
to stop you falling over. | 0:16:13 | 0:16:14 | |
Duncan was once one of Scotland's best climbers, | 0:16:16 | 0:16:19 | |
so his love of the outdoors | 0:16:19 | 0:16:21 | |
originated on the crags and rock faces. | 0:16:21 | 0:16:24 | |
It's also what led him, inadvertently, to mountain biking. | 0:16:24 | 0:16:28 | |
I had a really big injury, | 0:16:28 | 0:16:29 | |
I mean, I literally landed on the floor and broke my back and broke my | 0:16:29 | 0:16:33 | |
arm, and it was like hitting a wall. | 0:16:33 | 0:16:36 | |
Suddenly all of that stuff that was important, the training, the gym, | 0:16:36 | 0:16:40 | |
chasing a grade on a route, suddenly I thought, | 0:16:40 | 0:16:44 | |
"Actually, I'm just really quite glad I can get up and walk about." | 0:16:44 | 0:16:47 | |
And then, "I can get out and walk about and go outside." And, | 0:16:48 | 0:16:51 | |
"I can get up and walk about and actually get on a mountain bike." | 0:16:51 | 0:16:55 | |
So after my climbing injury, I started mountain biking. | 0:16:55 | 0:16:59 | |
So over my shoulder here on the right is Sgurr Ban | 0:16:59 | 0:17:03 | |
and just peeking out over this ridgeline, the foreground ridgeline, | 0:17:03 | 0:17:07 | |
is a rock slab and that's the objective for tomorrow. | 0:17:07 | 0:17:10 | |
It's the biggest sweep of clean rock in the UK. | 0:17:10 | 0:17:14 | |
Absolutely incredible feature. | 0:17:14 | 0:17:17 | |
It runs from almost the loch, almost to the summit. | 0:17:17 | 0:17:20 | |
Completely stripped of vegetation. | 0:17:20 | 0:17:22 | |
There's lots of big boulders at the top but somebody has ridden that on | 0:17:22 | 0:17:25 | |
a dry day on a mountain bike and that's what I'm going in to see | 0:17:25 | 0:17:29 | |
if I can do, or certainly admire the task. | 0:17:29 | 0:17:33 | |
Oh! On we go to a campsite. | 0:17:33 | 0:17:35 | |
This looks like a great place. Nice and dry, not too rocky. | 0:17:40 | 0:17:44 | |
Just look at the place. | 0:17:45 | 0:17:46 | |
It's amazing. | 0:17:46 | 0:17:48 | |
And a huge crag behind us. | 0:17:48 | 0:17:49 | |
For me, the difficult task is not the doing it, not the camping, | 0:17:51 | 0:17:57 | |
not the technology, nothing like that. | 0:17:57 | 0:18:00 | |
It's actually making your mind up in the first place to go out. | 0:18:00 | 0:18:04 | |
You know, the couple of weeks before, the day before, | 0:18:04 | 0:18:06 | |
that you decide you're going to do this. | 0:18:06 | 0:18:08 | |
And when you do and you commit to it, | 0:18:08 | 0:18:12 | |
it all pretty much is easy and just all falls into place. | 0:18:12 | 0:18:16 | |
Always have to keep reminding yourself that this is | 0:18:16 | 0:18:18 | |
very, very easy to do. | 0:18:18 | 0:18:19 | |
Absolutely, Duncan. Really, really easy! | 0:18:22 | 0:18:25 | |
As the saying goes, practice makes perfect. | 0:18:25 | 0:18:29 | |
Oh, that carbon pole's completely disintegrated. | 0:18:29 | 0:18:33 | |
-HE LAUGHS -Now I've got a bit of a problem. | 0:18:33 | 0:18:37 | |
It was all going so well. | 0:18:38 | 0:18:40 | |
Now I've got some work to do. | 0:18:40 | 0:18:42 | |
With a bit of tape, a lot of effort and surprisingly few obscenities, | 0:18:43 | 0:18:47 | |
Duncan's back in business. | 0:18:47 | 0:18:49 | |
Phew! Good. | 0:18:49 | 0:18:51 | |
Now I've got somewhere to sleep. | 0:18:51 | 0:18:53 | |
Ta-ra! | 0:18:55 | 0:18:56 | |
So it's finally time to enjoy what must be one of the best places in | 0:18:57 | 0:19:01 | |
Scotland to pitch your tent. | 0:19:01 | 0:19:02 | |
Just in the distance you can see one of the | 0:19:04 | 0:19:06 | |
rock towers on An Teallach, just coming out of the cloud. | 0:19:06 | 0:19:10 | |
It's really spectacular. | 0:19:10 | 0:19:11 | |
And it's amazing to think this is all a huge mix of rock and then | 0:19:12 | 0:19:16 | |
suddenly, just over the other side of there, that's all sandstone. | 0:19:16 | 0:19:19 | |
Slainte mhath. Until tomorrow. | 0:19:21 | 0:19:23 | |
Sleep well, Duncan, and make the most of it | 0:19:24 | 0:19:26 | |
because we'll be back later in the programme to find out if you can | 0:19:26 | 0:19:29 | |
ride down that massive slab of rock. | 0:19:29 | 0:19:32 | |
Welcome back to the Kindrochit Quadrathlon. | 0:19:41 | 0:19:43 | |
An hour and a half after they started, | 0:19:43 | 0:19:45 | |
the fastest competitors from the second wave of racers have powered | 0:19:45 | 0:19:49 | |
over the first of the seven Munros. | 0:19:49 | 0:19:51 | |
Now, thanks to modern technology, | 0:19:51 | 0:19:53 | |
we know which competitors currently have the best times. | 0:19:53 | 0:19:56 | |
-Morning, guys. -Hiya. | 0:19:56 | 0:19:58 | |
And only a few seconds separates the top three teams. | 0:19:58 | 0:20:02 | |
Well done, guys. Three pairs from this second wave are now through, | 0:20:02 | 0:20:05 | |
overtaking loads from the first wave. | 0:20:05 | 0:20:08 | |
Andy Gray and Sean McFarlane right out in front. | 0:20:08 | 0:20:10 | |
It's early days yet but I'm going to stick my neck out and say at the | 0:20:10 | 0:20:14 | |
moment I think that the winners of this race are going to come from the | 0:20:14 | 0:20:18 | |
second wave and not the first. | 0:20:18 | 0:20:20 | |
Deziree could well be right about that because right now | 0:20:20 | 0:20:23 | |
Sean McFarlane and Andy Gray have the fastest overall time. | 0:20:23 | 0:20:27 | |
-Yeah, good so far. -I think you go through highs and lows. | 0:20:27 | 0:20:31 | |
So I think you might go through a dip whilst your partner's feeling | 0:20:31 | 0:20:34 | |
strong and you pull each other through. | 0:20:34 | 0:20:36 | |
If you're closely matched, I think that helps cos you're kind of... | 0:20:36 | 0:20:38 | |
You're roughly the same pace most of the way through. | 0:20:38 | 0:20:41 | |
Once you're on the ridgeline, it's not too bad. | 0:20:41 | 0:20:43 | |
You can kind of just get into your stride a bit more but it's probably | 0:20:43 | 0:20:46 | |
over half the race up in the hills. | 0:20:46 | 0:20:48 | |
But Andy and Sean are only four minutes ahead of Drew Sharkey | 0:20:48 | 0:20:51 | |
-and Stuart Macleod. -He made me come here. | 0:20:51 | 0:20:54 | |
-He didn't tell me about this. -Now, don't be deceived. | 0:20:54 | 0:20:58 | |
Stuart may joke about it but he knows full well | 0:20:58 | 0:21:01 | |
what this race involves. | 0:21:01 | 0:21:03 | |
The running part is the largest component, I think. | 0:21:03 | 0:21:05 | |
But I actually don't know how long the run is, | 0:21:05 | 0:21:07 | |
so that just shows you how much I know. I don't actually know a great | 0:21:07 | 0:21:10 | |
deal. I've not actually looked at the details. | 0:21:10 | 0:21:12 | |
But Drew assures me I will be able to finish it, I hope, so we'll see. | 0:21:12 | 0:21:16 | |
I think Stuart's telling one or two big porkies. | 0:21:16 | 0:21:19 | |
As they race over the hills, | 0:21:19 | 0:21:20 | |
he and Drew are having a fantastic run and they're closing the gap on | 0:21:20 | 0:21:25 | |
-Andy and Sean. -Nice steady pace. | 0:21:25 | 0:21:29 | |
Nothing's gone wrong yet. | 0:21:29 | 0:21:30 | |
And the lads are just in front of us. | 0:21:31 | 0:21:33 | |
Despite their team name, Getting Too Old For This, | 0:21:34 | 0:21:37 | |
Paul Daccus and Stuart Gregory are currently in third place. | 0:21:37 | 0:21:41 | |
And as they head up An Stuc, they're just ten minutes behind the leaders. | 0:21:41 | 0:21:45 | |
They've competed here five times before and Stuart knows that this | 0:21:45 | 0:21:50 | |
Munro is the most technical of the hills. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:53 | |
Up An Stuc is clambering on all fours, | 0:21:53 | 0:21:57 | |
it's not the sort of thing I'd like to take my kids up. | 0:21:57 | 0:21:59 | |
It's quite steep. I wouldn't say it's necessarily dangerous but you | 0:21:59 | 0:22:04 | |
do have to be careful for falling rocks, too. | 0:22:04 | 0:22:06 | |
Many of this year's competitors have raced here before, | 0:22:07 | 0:22:10 | |
so know what to expect on this part of the run. | 0:22:10 | 0:22:13 | |
I've done it once before and I don't remember it being | 0:22:13 | 0:22:16 | |
-quite this steep. -THEY LAUGH | 0:22:16 | 0:22:18 | |
Others decided to check it out beforehand. | 0:22:18 | 0:22:21 | |
We had quite an adventure getting up there cos we had no idea how | 0:22:21 | 0:22:23 | |
rocky it was going to be. That really tested us. | 0:22:23 | 0:22:26 | |
We hadn't prepared enough, which was silly, for that. | 0:22:26 | 0:22:30 | |
But it was fine in the end. | 0:22:30 | 0:22:31 | |
So I'm quite looking forward to doing that one again. | 0:22:31 | 0:22:33 | |
We look better on radio at this time of the race! | 0:22:33 | 0:22:36 | |
It was a really good climb but we got sort of halfway and we didn't | 0:22:36 | 0:22:39 | |
want to go further up because it was too rocky but I didn't want to go | 0:22:39 | 0:22:42 | |
down, so we were just sort of sitting. | 0:22:42 | 0:22:44 | |
We had nowhere to go. But once we got to the top it was | 0:22:44 | 0:22:46 | |
absolutely fine. | 0:22:46 | 0:22:48 | |
I don't know what you expect when you sign up for something like this, | 0:22:48 | 0:22:51 | |
so it's... | 0:22:51 | 0:22:52 | |
Certainly this one's proving tough. | 0:22:54 | 0:22:56 | |
The weather's amazing, the view's fantastic. | 0:22:56 | 0:23:00 | |
Yeah. | 0:23:00 | 0:23:01 | |
We've done the swim. That's the main thing. | 0:23:01 | 0:23:04 | |
-Great. Lovely. -Watch out. | 0:23:04 | 0:23:06 | |
-Heads! -Heads! | 0:23:06 | 0:23:08 | |
Heads! | 0:23:08 | 0:23:10 | |
Still in the lead for the women are Fern Adams and Emily Lester, | 0:23:10 | 0:23:13 | |
who now live in London. | 0:23:13 | 0:23:15 | |
They're having a fantastic race | 0:23:15 | 0:23:16 | |
and really enjoying this unfamiliar terrain. | 0:23:16 | 0:23:19 | |
There were no photos of this bit in the brochure. | 0:23:19 | 0:23:22 | |
-SHE LAUGHS -Are you enjoying it, though? | 0:23:22 | 0:23:24 | |
Yeah, it's beautiful. | 0:23:24 | 0:23:26 | |
It's stunning. | 0:23:26 | 0:23:27 | |
I've never done a triathlon or anything like that before but this | 0:23:27 | 0:23:30 | |
had a huge draw just cos of where it's set and the setting | 0:23:30 | 0:23:33 | |
and how beautiful it is and being out in the wilderness. | 0:23:33 | 0:23:35 | |
That's what it's all about. | 0:23:35 | 0:23:37 | |
We're really lucky with the weather because when you get to the top of a | 0:23:37 | 0:23:40 | |
peak, you know, of a big mountain or whatever, | 0:23:40 | 0:23:42 | |
it's a real boost to have a great view, so I think... | 0:23:42 | 0:23:47 | |
Yeah, the weather and the location are really important for an event, | 0:23:47 | 0:23:50 | |
something like this. | 0:23:50 | 0:23:52 | |
We kind of thought that we'd be making the Ben Lawers checkpoint | 0:23:52 | 0:23:54 | |
at sort of one minute to two, so... | 0:23:54 | 0:23:57 | |
-Oh, you're... -We're doing all right. | 0:23:57 | 0:23:59 | |
-..miles ahead of schedule, then. -Massively. | 0:23:59 | 0:24:01 | |
-Ahead of schedule. I like to be early. -Most unusual for me! | 0:24:01 | 0:24:04 | |
Just 15 minutes behind, | 0:24:05 | 0:24:07 | |
the second women up An Stuc are Alice Parsons and Lydia Ashby. | 0:24:07 | 0:24:11 | |
Also, you can just kind of like hold on, pretend you're not here. | 0:24:11 | 0:24:17 | |
They also live and work south of the border, | 0:24:17 | 0:24:19 | |
so preparing for a steep climb like this hasn't been easy. | 0:24:19 | 0:24:23 | |
-Are you having a good day? -Yeah, surprisingly. -Not really! | 0:24:23 | 0:24:26 | |
-Oh. -THEY LAUGH | 0:24:26 | 0:24:27 | |
But nothing's going to stop them today. | 0:24:27 | 0:24:30 | |
I manage to forget pain quickly, sort of. | 0:24:30 | 0:24:32 | |
-We run quite a lot between us. -Mm-hm. -Flat mainly. | 0:24:32 | 0:24:35 | |
-Yeah. -We've done, yeah, a few marathons, but no hills. | 0:24:35 | 0:24:39 | |
If the worst comes to the worst, | 0:24:39 | 0:24:41 | |
-we will be able to roughly work out what we're doing. -Yeah. | 0:24:41 | 0:24:44 | |
I have a vague idea how to use a map and compass but I just can't really | 0:24:44 | 0:24:47 | |
remember, but I'm sure... | 0:24:47 | 0:24:48 | |
When push comes to shove and we're freezing at the top... | 0:24:48 | 0:24:51 | |
Yeah, it'll come back. | 0:24:51 | 0:24:52 | |
I really don't know what they're worrying about. | 0:24:52 | 0:24:54 | |
Currently, Alice and Lydia are 20 minutes ahead of | 0:24:54 | 0:24:57 | |
the third women's team. | 0:24:57 | 0:24:59 | |
Karin Brogtrop and Chantal Klijnhout are from the Netherlands, | 0:24:59 | 0:25:03 | |
somewhere that's not noted for its hills. | 0:25:03 | 0:25:06 | |
I did a marathon in Tehran, actually, two months ago, | 0:25:06 | 0:25:09 | |
which is... Tehran is super hilly, | 0:25:09 | 0:25:10 | |
so I had a little bit of practice there. | 0:25:10 | 0:25:13 | |
In France, we're doing with the line. | 0:25:13 | 0:25:15 | |
And a guide! | 0:25:16 | 0:25:17 | |
I've climbed once in Edinburgh. | 0:25:18 | 0:25:21 | |
There's also a hill near the city. | 0:25:21 | 0:25:24 | |
And I climbed that one, so I know how steep they are. | 0:25:24 | 0:25:26 | |
The racers are now spread out across the length of this mountain range. | 0:25:27 | 0:25:31 | |
This is the longest and | 0:25:31 | 0:25:32 | |
arguably most endurance-sapping part of the race and it's where many of | 0:25:32 | 0:25:36 | |
the competitors will find out if they're up to the challenge. | 0:25:36 | 0:25:40 | |
A lot of them are looking pretty tired already. | 0:25:40 | 0:25:43 | |
-SHE LAUGHS -This is so funny! So difficult. | 0:25:43 | 0:25:46 | |
Well, I live on Primrose Hill, so this is about 3,000 times bigger. | 0:25:46 | 0:25:50 | |
Today will be a challenge but... | 0:25:51 | 0:25:53 | |
I'm a runner, so hopefully my legs are in good stead to get | 0:25:53 | 0:25:57 | |
up the hills. | 0:25:57 | 0:25:58 | |
Just going to take quite a while, so we've got plenty of hydration, | 0:25:58 | 0:26:01 | |
plenty of energy bars, snacks, stuff to keep us going. | 0:26:01 | 0:26:04 | |
For me, at this point it's not about coming first. | 0:26:05 | 0:26:08 | |
Because it's not going to happen. | 0:26:08 | 0:26:09 | |
But it's just kind of seeing how well we get through it | 0:26:09 | 0:26:12 | |
and how quick we can do it. | 0:26:12 | 0:26:14 | |
Probably haven't trained enough. | 0:26:14 | 0:26:16 | |
Slightly too fat. I should leave London for ever. | 0:26:16 | 0:26:19 | |
It's an amazing place. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. | 0:26:19 | 0:26:22 | |
If you see the feeling here on this event, the spirit, the people, | 0:26:22 | 0:26:26 | |
I think that also is an important factor to keep us going. | 0:26:26 | 0:26:29 | |
The people are so cool and so excited, so that will help us also. | 0:26:29 | 0:26:33 | |
-They never told me rock climbing was involved. -No! | 0:26:33 | 0:26:36 | |
I thought it was a runner. A casual run. | 0:26:36 | 0:26:38 | |
Are you by yourself? | 0:26:39 | 0:26:40 | |
No, it's just I'm hoping I'm going to spur him along | 0:26:40 | 0:26:43 | |
and he'll do the same to me a bit later on. | 0:26:43 | 0:26:44 | |
I think it's part of a fermenting midlife crisis | 0:26:46 | 0:26:49 | |
that we're both undergoing, | 0:26:49 | 0:26:51 | |
so we're trying to justify, validate our masculinity, | 0:26:51 | 0:26:55 | |
would be the number one reason. | 0:26:55 | 0:26:57 | |
But it's an amazing challenge, you know, | 0:26:57 | 0:26:59 | |
we did it together four years ago | 0:26:59 | 0:27:01 | |
and I think we feel like we left a bit on the mountain | 0:27:01 | 0:27:04 | |
and we've come back and try and beat our from last time. | 0:27:04 | 0:27:07 | |
Yeah, a couple of years ago, it was tough. | 0:27:07 | 0:27:09 | |
A part of John's still living up in those mountains. | 0:27:09 | 0:27:12 | |
I think I left something up there! | 0:27:12 | 0:27:13 | |
We had some tears, so we're going to... | 0:27:13 | 0:27:15 | |
We're going to come back and try and get that bit of Crompton back. | 0:27:15 | 0:27:18 | |
Yeah, that's the main reason, to be honest. | 0:27:18 | 0:27:20 | |
I'm not sure I'm enjoying this as much as I thought I would actually, | 0:27:20 | 0:27:23 | |
surprise surprise. | 0:27:23 | 0:27:24 | |
BAGPIPES PLAY | 0:27:24 | 0:27:27 | |
It's 10:05am and we've just seen the first racers | 0:27:27 | 0:27:30 | |
breaking the ridgeline behind us. | 0:27:30 | 0:27:32 | |
They're going to run down to the checkpoint at Lochan-na-Lairige. | 0:27:32 | 0:27:35 | |
Now, this is where they drop lots of height. | 0:27:35 | 0:27:38 | |
They'll have done six Munros by this point, they have another one to do, | 0:27:38 | 0:27:41 | |
so quite soul-destroying, cos they'll see the drop and then they'll see | 0:27:41 | 0:27:44 | |
the big climb on the other side, but these guys are going at a fair old pace. | 0:27:44 | 0:27:48 | |
This is truly incredible stuff. | 0:27:50 | 0:27:52 | |
This is Andy Gray here and he's Sean McFarlane's partner. | 0:27:52 | 0:27:56 | |
Andy, well done. You're looking really good. | 0:27:56 | 0:27:58 | |
That's three hours and 12 minutes to this point, as I understand it. | 0:27:58 | 0:28:01 | |
-That's about right, yeah. -You're absolutely flying. | 0:28:01 | 0:28:04 | |
All right, so, here we go. We've got neck and neck. | 0:28:04 | 0:28:06 | |
This is amazing. | 0:28:06 | 0:28:08 | |
So, here's our first competitor. This is very good. | 0:28:08 | 0:28:11 | |
Interesting stuff. | 0:28:11 | 0:28:12 | |
There's Stuart and Drew, Andy and Sean, neck and neck. | 0:28:12 | 0:28:17 | |
There's Sean McFarlane coming in. | 0:28:20 | 0:28:21 | |
Andy Gray's partner. | 0:28:21 | 0:28:23 | |
Well done, boys. | 0:28:23 | 0:28:25 | |
Now, we wondered how tight this race was going to be and there's the | 0:28:25 | 0:28:28 | |
answer right there. It's going to be incredibly tight. | 0:28:28 | 0:28:30 | |
Sean and Drew, who were first last year as a pair, | 0:28:30 | 0:28:34 | |
they split up and they now have separate partners. | 0:28:34 | 0:28:37 | |
They are racing neck and neck, head-to-head, toe-to-toe, the full thing. | 0:28:37 | 0:28:42 | |
Four runners together. | 0:28:42 | 0:28:44 | |
They got to this point in three hours and 12 minutes. | 0:28:44 | 0:28:46 | |
That is incredibly fast. | 0:28:46 | 0:28:48 | |
Now, they will be pushing each other on and they now know that | 0:28:48 | 0:28:53 | |
if they all keep it together, this could be a sprint finish. | 0:28:53 | 0:28:56 | |
Unbelievable stuff. | 0:28:56 | 0:28:58 | |
Six Munros done, one to go. | 0:28:58 | 0:29:00 | |
And my goodness me, four guys that know each other very, very well indeed. | 0:29:00 | 0:29:05 | |
Sean's looking a wee bit tired at the back there. | 0:29:05 | 0:29:08 | |
Drew and Stuart at the front are just getting it done. | 0:29:08 | 0:29:11 | |
And Andy Gray is leading Sean on, Sean in the blue. | 0:29:11 | 0:29:13 | |
My goodness me. The race is on. | 0:29:15 | 0:29:18 | |
I've made my way down Loch Tay to the transition point | 0:29:20 | 0:29:23 | |
between the hill run and the kayak. | 0:29:23 | 0:29:25 | |
And for a lot of people, they'll think this is going to be a bit of a rest | 0:29:25 | 0:29:28 | |
after the 2,000 metres of ascent and decent. | 0:29:28 | 0:29:31 | |
However, when you sit in the boats, | 0:29:31 | 0:29:33 | |
you suddenly start getting cramp, then you have a seven-mile kayak down the | 0:29:33 | 0:29:36 | |
loch and that is going to be tough. | 0:29:36 | 0:29:38 | |
As they pound down the final Munro, | 0:29:39 | 0:29:41 | |
Sean McFarlane and Andy Gray couldn't match the pace of the leading team | 0:29:41 | 0:29:45 | |
and the gap has widened. | 0:29:45 | 0:29:47 | |
So, Stuart MacLeod and Drew Sharkey have done an incredible run, | 0:29:47 | 0:29:51 | |
overtaking Sean McFarlane and Andy Gray, | 0:29:51 | 0:29:53 | |
and they've absolutely blasted them on the descent from the mountain. | 0:29:53 | 0:29:57 | |
Stuart, good. Well done. | 0:29:57 | 0:29:58 | |
Aye. Yeah. Good, thanks. | 0:29:58 | 0:30:00 | |
So, at 11:31 they have made really fine progress. | 0:30:01 | 0:30:05 | |
That must have been a very, very fast descent, with hill runs. | 0:30:05 | 0:30:09 | |
The boldness of your running downhill is as important, | 0:30:09 | 0:30:13 | |
if not more than important, getting your speed up, | 0:30:13 | 0:30:15 | |
so Stuart and Drew are heading off down the loch and look at that, | 0:30:15 | 0:30:20 | |
straight into a nice rhythm. | 0:30:20 | 0:30:21 | |
And they already have three minutes | 0:30:23 | 0:30:25 | |
ahead of Sean McFarlane and Andy Gray, | 0:30:25 | 0:30:28 | |
who we think are coming in just behind them. | 0:30:28 | 0:30:30 | |
Me and Sean are good mates and we get on well, | 0:30:31 | 0:30:34 | |
so it should be a good bit of banter and Sean's really good | 0:30:34 | 0:30:38 | |
at this stuff. | 0:30:38 | 0:30:39 | |
Sean's forte is going all day and not slowing down. | 0:30:39 | 0:30:43 | |
And so it should make for a pretty interesting race, I think. | 0:30:43 | 0:30:46 | |
So, coming in now, Andy Gray and Sean McFarlane. | 0:30:47 | 0:30:51 | |
A good 13 minutes behind the leaders. | 0:30:51 | 0:30:54 | |
-Sean, how was that? -It was tough. | 0:30:54 | 0:30:56 | |
It was tough. We kind of died on the second half of the run. | 0:30:56 | 0:30:58 | |
How far ahead are they? 13 minutes. | 0:30:58 | 0:31:00 | |
13. Right. Unlucky for some. | 0:31:00 | 0:31:02 | |
They said they died a little bit on the second-half of the hill run, | 0:31:02 | 0:31:05 | |
just lost the legs, | 0:31:05 | 0:31:07 | |
so hopefully they can just push a little bit on the kayak and they are | 0:31:07 | 0:31:10 | |
very, very strong cyclists. | 0:31:10 | 0:31:13 | |
So, Andy, how was that descent? | 0:31:13 | 0:31:15 | |
It was tough. It was thrashy. Tough on the legs, actually. Yeah. | 0:31:15 | 0:31:18 | |
You're used to going up and then all of a sudden you are going | 0:31:18 | 0:31:21 | |
-on the legs on the way back down. -Right, good luck on this. | 0:31:21 | 0:31:24 | |
So, as we see Sean McFarlane and Andy Gray head off, | 0:31:24 | 0:31:28 | |
they are probably 14 minutes now behind the race leaders | 0:31:28 | 0:31:32 | |
of Stuart MacLeod and Drew Sharkey. | 0:31:32 | 0:31:34 | |
They've got a bit to catch up. | 0:31:34 | 0:31:36 | |
It'll be a pretty tough ask now. | 0:31:36 | 0:31:38 | |
And the lead team are very strong on the bike. | 0:31:40 | 0:31:43 | |
So they will have to make up a lot of speed here. | 0:31:43 | 0:31:46 | |
A bit like the swim, the kayaking leg is not really where | 0:31:47 | 0:31:50 | |
you're going to win or lose the race, | 0:31:50 | 0:31:52 | |
but this is an energy-sapping slow boat | 0:31:52 | 0:31:55 | |
and they're all exactly the same. | 0:31:55 | 0:31:57 | |
They're really hard to paddle, they're very flat bottomed, | 0:31:57 | 0:32:00 | |
they will not glide in this water and, with the tailwind, | 0:32:00 | 0:32:03 | |
they're going to push you all over the place, | 0:32:03 | 0:32:05 | |
so you need really good technique in these things | 0:32:05 | 0:32:07 | |
to actually survive it with any sort of energy for the cycle. | 0:32:07 | 0:32:10 | |
So, paddle well and keep in a straight line. | 0:32:10 | 0:32:13 | |
Can be demoralising. | 0:32:15 | 0:32:16 | |
Last year we had a team that we started kayak with and they had a good kayaker | 0:32:16 | 0:32:19 | |
with them in their team and they paddled away from us | 0:32:19 | 0:32:22 | |
and actually Drew Sharkey was equating their time ahead of us | 0:32:22 | 0:32:24 | |
to how long that would be | 0:32:24 | 0:32:26 | |
on the road on the bike, so it's easy to get caught up | 0:32:26 | 0:32:28 | |
in what's going on around you, | 0:32:28 | 0:32:30 | |
but the kayak is just, get it done, | 0:32:30 | 0:32:32 | |
keep taking on board nutrition at that point, which is vital, | 0:32:32 | 0:32:35 | |
because a lot of folk forget that, and then prepare for the bike. | 0:32:35 | 0:32:38 | |
Well done. | 0:32:38 | 0:32:39 | |
Third into this transition are Paul Daccus and Stuart Gregory. | 0:32:39 | 0:32:42 | |
They've had a great run, but the first two teams are flying over this | 0:32:42 | 0:32:46 | |
course, which means Paul and Stuart are now 38 minutes behind. | 0:32:46 | 0:32:51 | |
So, Paul and Stuart are out there into the loch. | 0:32:51 | 0:32:53 | |
The wind has picked up again, so they'll have that behind them. | 0:32:53 | 0:32:56 | |
So they'll get a nice flying kayak down there. | 0:32:56 | 0:32:58 | |
There's a huge gap between them and the first two teams, though. | 0:33:00 | 0:33:03 | |
So now what they're going to try and do is protect their third-place | 0:33:04 | 0:33:07 | |
position. They just need to get their... | 0:33:07 | 0:33:09 | |
..strokes in order, so they're paddling at the same time. | 0:33:10 | 0:33:13 | |
There we go. | 0:33:13 | 0:33:14 | |
Obviously getting instruction from behind. | 0:33:14 | 0:33:16 | |
So, Paul and Stuart heading off down the loch with a strong tailwind. | 0:33:16 | 0:33:21 | |
I think with the kayak being the third leg, | 0:33:22 | 0:33:25 | |
that actually makes it quite tough, | 0:33:25 | 0:33:27 | |
because your legs are exhausted after the run | 0:33:27 | 0:33:29 | |
and then they sit still for over an hour | 0:33:29 | 0:33:32 | |
and then you have to get them moving again on the bike. | 0:33:32 | 0:33:35 | |
The weather makes a very big difference. | 0:33:36 | 0:33:38 | |
Last year our kayak time was about 12 minutes slower | 0:33:38 | 0:33:42 | |
than three years prior, and yet we've done more kayak training. | 0:33:42 | 0:33:47 | |
So that just doesn't make any sense and it's all about the wind, really. | 0:33:47 | 0:33:50 | |
So, many of the racers here are quite experienced triathletes, | 0:33:52 | 0:33:55 | |
so they bike, they swim and they run, | 0:33:55 | 0:33:57 | |
but kayaking is going to be their least familiar discipline. | 0:33:57 | 0:34:00 | |
For those who can kayak, all they have to do is cope with | 0:34:00 | 0:34:03 | |
a little bit of fatigue as they head down the loch. | 0:34:03 | 0:34:05 | |
For many, though, this will be the first time in choppy water | 0:34:05 | 0:34:09 | |
and it's really difficult to | 0:34:09 | 0:34:11 | |
cross our ferry glide across the loch to the cycling transition. | 0:34:11 | 0:34:15 | |
That will be a tough ask. | 0:34:15 | 0:34:17 | |
We'll be back to see how they get on shortly. | 0:34:18 | 0:34:20 | |
Now, let's join a young photographer who is inspired by those elusive | 0:34:31 | 0:34:35 | |
moments and jaw-dropping scenes | 0:34:35 | 0:34:37 | |
that make this landscape of ours so special. | 0:34:37 | 0:34:41 | |
You might think Dan Bell has always had a passion for the outdoors. | 0:34:41 | 0:34:44 | |
But that's not the case. | 0:34:44 | 0:34:47 | |
We did actually go on quite a few family walks, and at the time... | 0:34:47 | 0:34:51 | |
..I remember not enjoying them at all. | 0:34:53 | 0:34:56 | |
It was kind of just a big long walk | 0:34:57 | 0:35:00 | |
with no computer games or video games. | 0:35:00 | 0:35:04 | |
It wasn't the most exciting thing to do. | 0:35:04 | 0:35:07 | |
I don't think there was, like, a clean-cut moment of just like, | 0:35:08 | 0:35:11 | |
"Oh, I love nature now." | 0:35:11 | 0:35:12 | |
But during uni I hadn't really found something | 0:35:12 | 0:35:15 | |
that I could get really into. | 0:35:15 | 0:35:16 | |
I think when I started taking pictures | 0:35:18 | 0:35:19 | |
I could, like, really get into it, | 0:35:19 | 0:35:21 | |
so I found it was something that I could really spend a lot of time on. | 0:35:21 | 0:35:24 | |
Today Dan combines his photography with video blogging and, | 0:35:24 | 0:35:28 | |
in a complete about-face, he is now passionate about our wild places. | 0:35:28 | 0:35:33 | |
Indeed, the wilder the better. | 0:35:33 | 0:35:35 | |
Oh! Oh! | 0:35:35 | 0:35:39 | |
It's so cold! It's so cold! | 0:35:39 | 0:35:41 | |
Bit of a drop. | 0:35:41 | 0:35:42 | |
And Dan wants to share his enjoyment with everyone. | 0:35:44 | 0:35:48 | |
For him, this is as good as any computer game. | 0:35:48 | 0:35:51 | |
So, I was on Google Maps looking at this area a few months ago and had | 0:35:51 | 0:35:56 | |
found a place that we wanted to camp | 0:35:56 | 0:35:59 | |
and it had a lochan and running down from the lochan there was a river, | 0:35:59 | 0:36:03 | |
so I thought it might be funny | 0:36:03 | 0:36:05 | |
just to kind of have a wee bit of a paddle in the river, | 0:36:05 | 0:36:07 | |
but I didn't expect there to be, like, a proper flume. | 0:36:07 | 0:36:10 | |
The whole river is on this massive big rock slab, | 0:36:11 | 0:36:14 | |
which makes the perfect natural flume. | 0:36:14 | 0:36:17 | |
This thing is so fun and it's free! | 0:36:17 | 0:36:19 | |
It's like the best aqua park in Scotland. | 0:36:19 | 0:36:22 | |
Woo-hoo! | 0:36:25 | 0:36:26 | |
And I think the video worked out just cos I was genuinely so excited | 0:36:26 | 0:36:29 | |
to be on a water slide. | 0:36:29 | 0:36:31 | |
Woo-hoo! | 0:36:31 | 0:36:32 | |
Dan takes a DIY approach to his travels. | 0:36:32 | 0:36:35 | |
Walking, biking or catching ferries | 0:36:35 | 0:36:37 | |
in order to explore the most exciting parts of Scotland. | 0:36:37 | 0:36:41 | |
I've just had this crazy realisation. | 0:36:41 | 0:36:44 | |
I'm starting up the road and I'm heading down to a loch, | 0:36:44 | 0:36:48 | |
which would probably mean this is going to be downhill. | 0:36:48 | 0:36:51 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:36:53 | 0:36:54 | |
And he's learnt as he's gone along. | 0:36:54 | 0:36:56 | |
Some of the first times I went camping, | 0:36:56 | 0:36:58 | |
I really didn't know what I was doing | 0:36:58 | 0:36:59 | |
and one of the main things that I didn't bring was a roll mat. | 0:36:59 | 0:37:02 | |
And what I didn't realise was that if you're camping in the cold, | 0:37:02 | 0:37:05 | |
those things are absolutely essential | 0:37:05 | 0:37:07 | |
because it means that your body heat's not going | 0:37:07 | 0:37:09 | |
straight back into the ground. | 0:37:09 | 0:37:11 | |
So, I was camping near Loch Lomond... | 0:37:13 | 0:37:14 | |
..probably about November time and I didn't have one of these roll mats | 0:37:16 | 0:37:19 | |
and it got colder and colder and colder, | 0:37:19 | 0:37:22 | |
and I genuinely started to get worried | 0:37:22 | 0:37:24 | |
that I wasn't actually going to sleep at all, | 0:37:24 | 0:37:26 | |
just cos it was absolutely freezing. | 0:37:26 | 0:37:29 | |
But I had one of those, like, foil survival blankets, | 0:37:29 | 0:37:34 | |
so I used one of those over my sleeping bag | 0:37:34 | 0:37:36 | |
instead and that kind of works. | 0:37:36 | 0:37:38 | |
But ever since that trip, I was like, | 0:37:38 | 0:37:40 | |
"A roll mat should probably be one of those things I should bring." | 0:37:40 | 0:37:43 | |
But when everything goes right, | 0:37:45 | 0:37:47 | |
Dan has found himself in some fantastic locations... | 0:37:47 | 0:37:51 | |
..including this amazing sunrise on Suilven. | 0:37:53 | 0:37:56 | |
This is what he loves, | 0:38:04 | 0:38:06 | |
being out on his own in Scotland's most dramatic landscapes. | 0:38:06 | 0:38:10 | |
Trips with friends, it's fun, | 0:38:10 | 0:38:13 | |
but I think it's just different to be out by yourself as well. | 0:38:13 | 0:38:15 | |
To find out more about Dan's work | 0:38:17 | 0:38:19 | |
follow The Adventure Show on Facebook. | 0:38:19 | 0:38:21 | |
And, as we always say, have a great time but travel safely. | 0:38:21 | 0:38:25 | |
We can't afford to lose you. | 0:38:25 | 0:38:27 | |
Now let's follow our own and substantially older adventurer | 0:38:35 | 0:38:40 | |
on his two-day trip through the Letterewe wilderness. | 0:38:40 | 0:38:42 | |
Time to wake up Duncan. | 0:38:42 | 0:38:44 | |
The weather's great today and there's a big challenge ahead. | 0:38:44 | 0:38:47 | |
Amazing. Not a cloud in the sky. | 0:38:48 | 0:38:51 | |
Get some tea on. | 0:38:52 | 0:38:53 | |
Fantastic. | 0:38:55 | 0:38:57 | |
Duncan's plan today is to try and ride down the huge slab of | 0:38:57 | 0:39:00 | |
rock that leads from the summit of Sgurr Bann. | 0:39:00 | 0:39:04 | |
The conditions are dry but there's been weeks of rain, | 0:39:04 | 0:39:07 | |
so it's touch and go. | 0:39:07 | 0:39:09 | |
Only a few people have done this before. | 0:39:09 | 0:39:11 | |
There's some black streaks on it which might not be rideable, | 0:39:13 | 0:39:15 | |
but I'm definitely going to check it out. | 0:39:15 | 0:39:17 | |
It looks really complicated. | 0:39:20 | 0:39:22 | |
The top part's fine. | 0:39:22 | 0:39:23 | |
The lower part of the slab looks really steep, | 0:39:25 | 0:39:29 | |
so I imagine there's a huge set of zigzags to be done. | 0:39:29 | 0:39:33 | |
HE PUFFS | 0:39:35 | 0:39:37 | |
Definitely too steep to push the bike. | 0:39:37 | 0:39:42 | |
Too many tussocks. | 0:39:43 | 0:39:44 | |
We are really far out here. | 0:39:46 | 0:39:47 | |
Definitely have to ride within my capabilities. | 0:39:49 | 0:39:53 | |
But, yeah, that looks like quite a challenge. | 0:39:53 | 0:39:55 | |
It's challenges like these that Duncan has pursued | 0:39:57 | 0:39:59 | |
since he turned from rock climbing to mountain biking | 0:39:59 | 0:40:02 | |
over 20 years ago. | 0:40:02 | 0:40:04 | |
And since he was a teenager, | 0:40:04 | 0:40:05 | |
it's being at the leading edge that motivates him. | 0:40:05 | 0:40:08 | |
That looks OK, just there maybe. | 0:40:09 | 0:40:12 | |
If I don't drop the bike into the abyss. | 0:40:12 | 0:40:14 | |
This is where I really want walking poles rather than a machine. | 0:40:18 | 0:40:22 | |
Ooh! Does look like the only access. | 0:40:22 | 0:40:25 | |
Let's see. | 0:40:25 | 0:40:27 | |
Don't want to drop this, cos it might go the whole way down. | 0:40:30 | 0:40:34 | |
Seems like the perfect way to spoil a good hill walk, | 0:40:39 | 0:40:43 | |
by carrying this thing up here. | 0:40:43 | 0:40:45 | |
The further I get up, the more I think this is | 0:40:46 | 0:40:51 | |
a pretty mad scheme. | 0:40:51 | 0:40:52 | |
Might be better higher up, but for me this is unrideable. | 0:40:53 | 0:40:57 | |
Hopefully some of these wet patches will disappear, | 0:40:59 | 0:41:01 | |
because they're totally slippery. | 0:41:01 | 0:41:03 | |
But the idea is to look at it a bit like a ski journey. | 0:41:04 | 0:41:07 | |
You don't want to go straight down the hill, | 0:41:07 | 0:41:09 | |
you want to try and go to little points of safety all the way along | 0:41:09 | 0:41:13 | |
and then re-reference yourself and then try again. | 0:41:13 | 0:41:16 | |
But at the moment it's looking like a really crazy challenge. | 0:41:16 | 0:41:20 | |
After a big effort, | 0:41:22 | 0:41:23 | |
Duncan's nearly made it to the top of the rideable slope. | 0:41:23 | 0:41:27 | |
Pretty much I've decided to go from here. | 0:41:27 | 0:41:30 | |
There's about 400, maybe 450 metres of vertical between me and the loch. | 0:41:31 | 0:41:36 | |
And it feels really out here. | 0:41:37 | 0:41:39 | |
There's 1,500 feet of descent roughly, | 0:41:39 | 0:41:43 | |
the summit's pretty close and the rest of the slabs above me are definitely | 0:41:43 | 0:41:47 | |
something I don't want to be riding on my own, so I'm going to go from that little rock there, | 0:41:47 | 0:41:51 | |
and see how far I can get. | 0:41:51 | 0:41:53 | |
So this is it. A quick change of jacket and Duncan's ready to go. | 0:41:54 | 0:41:58 | |
Right, tally-ho. | 0:41:58 | 0:41:59 | |
Slightly nervous about this. | 0:42:00 | 0:42:02 | |
Keep brakes on on the dry and just let them off slightly | 0:42:03 | 0:42:07 | |
on the black bits and the wet bits so it runs over. | 0:42:07 | 0:42:10 | |
Much, much less friction than you'd think. | 0:42:12 | 0:42:15 | |
This is nice, though. | 0:42:15 | 0:42:16 | |
We are so far from anywhere and every so often you come up with these little overlaps | 0:42:18 | 0:42:21 | |
and there's little tyre stoppers, | 0:42:21 | 0:42:23 | |
so I'm going to go pretty gentle to start with. | 0:42:23 | 0:42:26 | |
In fact, I'll go gentle all the way down. | 0:42:26 | 0:42:29 | |
It's just the scale of it, it's just huge. | 0:42:29 | 0:42:31 | |
But it's so hard to spot the line. | 0:42:32 | 0:42:34 | |
I've kind of lost it now. It's much, much more complicated here | 0:42:34 | 0:42:38 | |
on the bike than it was walking up just looking at it. | 0:42:38 | 0:42:41 | |
Just need to be careful where there's a bit of moss | 0:42:43 | 0:42:45 | |
because that is very, very slippery indeed. | 0:42:45 | 0:42:47 | |
Good fun, though, so far. | 0:42:47 | 0:42:48 | |
Oh, dear. You spoke a moment too soon there, Duncan. | 0:42:51 | 0:42:54 | |
That was pretty interesting! | 0:42:54 | 0:42:56 | |
I just was crossing between a little rivulet of water | 0:42:56 | 0:43:00 | |
and the front wheel hit it | 0:43:00 | 0:43:01 | |
and it skidded around and then it got jammed. | 0:43:01 | 0:43:06 | |
When it gets wet, it goes really fast. | 0:43:06 | 0:43:09 | |
But it's quite an experience. It's exciting. | 0:43:09 | 0:43:12 | |
Now it drops off into the area that I had to carry the bike up. | 0:43:12 | 0:43:16 | |
And you really, really don't want to fall off there. | 0:43:16 | 0:43:18 | |
Well, it didn't quite go as I planned. | 0:43:18 | 0:43:20 | |
It's much, much more difficult than I thought it was going to be. | 0:43:20 | 0:43:23 | |
But as an adventure it's incredible. | 0:43:23 | 0:43:25 | |
So, time to go home. | 0:43:26 | 0:43:29 | |
Well, it's not quite time for us to go home yet, | 0:43:29 | 0:43:31 | |
because now we're heading back to the Kindrochit Quadrathlon. | 0:43:31 | 0:43:34 | |
Woohoo! | 0:43:42 | 0:43:44 | |
Welcome back to the action here at Loch Tay. | 0:43:44 | 0:43:47 | |
There's now a steady stream of people coming off the hill and into | 0:43:47 | 0:43:50 | |
transition to the kayak. | 0:43:50 | 0:43:52 | |
But for some who are still up there there's many, many hours to go. | 0:43:52 | 0:43:57 | |
Well, I don't know whether we've gone a bit too hard too early, | 0:43:57 | 0:44:01 | |
but this is hard. | 0:44:01 | 0:44:03 | |
It's one of those things you look back on the day after you've done it | 0:44:03 | 0:44:06 | |
and you say, "That was amazing." | 0:44:06 | 0:44:08 | |
And then even during the day, if the weather is fine, then, you know, | 0:44:08 | 0:44:11 | |
it's amazing up the Munros. | 0:44:11 | 0:44:13 | |
And the will to conquer things after that. | 0:44:13 | 0:44:16 | |
-Feels good. -SHE LAUGHS | 0:44:17 | 0:44:20 | |
Today you can certainly see why Scotland's been voted the most beautiful country in the world. | 0:44:20 | 0:44:25 | |
At the moment, there are nearly 300 people out on the course | 0:44:25 | 0:44:29 | |
and all of them have their own personal reasons | 0:44:29 | 0:44:31 | |
for taking on this challenge. | 0:44:31 | 0:44:33 | |
We are doing this to raise funds for the Mercy Corps, for the refugees. | 0:44:33 | 0:44:37 | |
So, I think that was a good cause to embrace | 0:44:37 | 0:44:40 | |
and a nice challenge from a sport perspective as well. | 0:44:40 | 0:44:44 | |
The reason we are both doing this is because of Mary's Meals, | 0:44:45 | 0:44:48 | |
because we are supporters of Mary's Meals, | 0:44:48 | 0:44:50 | |
so hopefully that will keep us going | 0:44:50 | 0:44:52 | |
no matter what happens, and in the whole day | 0:44:52 | 0:44:54 | |
we'll keep going because of that. | 0:44:54 | 0:44:56 | |
I think we will have raised enough money | 0:44:56 | 0:44:58 | |
to feed 16 children for an entire year with Mary's Meals | 0:44:58 | 0:45:01 | |
when we finish it. That is the aim of the whole thing. | 0:45:01 | 0:45:04 | |
We hear lots of stories | 0:45:04 | 0:45:05 | |
of people that have to carry 60kg of stuff up hills, | 0:45:05 | 0:45:08 | |
just so their children can eat food. | 0:45:08 | 0:45:10 | |
So if they can do it, climbing seven Munros is nothing. | 0:45:10 | 0:45:14 | |
So, back here in the water, the kayak, like the swim, | 0:45:16 | 0:45:19 | |
is somewhere you might not win the race, | 0:45:19 | 0:45:21 | |
but if you're struggling with the water and struggling with the wind | 0:45:21 | 0:45:25 | |
it really will sap a lot of energy. | 0:45:25 | 0:45:26 | |
In the women's category it's neck and neck between the two fastest teams. | 0:45:27 | 0:45:32 | |
Now, Lydia Ashby and Alice Parsons have taken the lead. | 0:45:32 | 0:45:35 | |
But they are only two minutes ahead of Emily Lester and Fern Adams, | 0:45:35 | 0:45:39 | |
so the race is still wide open. | 0:45:39 | 0:45:42 | |
I've done a fair bit of kayaking and we've been on canoeing expeditions | 0:45:42 | 0:45:45 | |
and stuff together, so... | 0:45:45 | 0:45:46 | |
I think the kayak is probably the bit where we | 0:45:46 | 0:45:48 | |
are most comfortable. | 0:45:48 | 0:45:50 | |
Yeah. That'll be fun. | 0:45:50 | 0:45:51 | |
That'll be to sit down after being on our feet... | 0:45:51 | 0:45:54 | |
Relax, sing a few sea shanties. | 0:45:54 | 0:45:56 | |
Paddling, paddling. | 0:45:56 | 0:45:58 | |
I have never kayaked before, ever. | 0:45:59 | 0:46:01 | |
-Ever? -No. | 0:46:01 | 0:46:02 | |
We thought about it. In London, it was impossible to find somewhere we | 0:46:02 | 0:46:05 | |
could kayak without doing loads of training in a pool and stuff, | 0:46:05 | 0:46:09 | |
so we figured we'd just... | 0:46:09 | 0:46:10 | |
-Just going to risk it for a biscuit. -Yeah. | 0:46:10 | 0:46:12 | |
Our biggest bag of food is at the kayak, | 0:46:12 | 0:46:14 | |
-so we will sit... -And eat our way through it. | 0:46:14 | 0:46:17 | |
Currently in third place for the women are Karin Brogtrop | 0:46:17 | 0:46:21 | |
and Chantal Klijnhout and for them this is also a new experience. | 0:46:21 | 0:46:25 | |
-We have to figure it out here. -No clue! | 0:46:25 | 0:46:27 | |
And there was some training you could do at home with the rowing machine | 0:46:27 | 0:46:32 | |
but, really, it was so warm, | 0:46:32 | 0:46:34 | |
in the Netherlands it was tropical weather, | 0:46:34 | 0:46:36 | |
so it was on top of the house | 0:46:36 | 0:46:38 | |
and it was too warm to practise, so we thought, OK... | 0:46:38 | 0:46:41 | |
We focused on the running, on the swimming, and on the bike. | 0:46:41 | 0:46:45 | |
Back here is the transition between kayak and bike | 0:46:46 | 0:46:50 | |
and the first kayakers are approaching the beach. | 0:46:50 | 0:46:53 | |
It is Stuart MacLeod, and Drew Sharkey, | 0:46:53 | 0:46:56 | |
and there's been a tailwind up Loch Tay | 0:46:56 | 0:46:58 | |
and they're putting in a big, big performance. | 0:46:58 | 0:47:02 | |
Faster than anyone expected. Drew, how you feeling? | 0:47:02 | 0:47:05 | |
-Yeah, good. -You're looking great. -I feel great. | 0:47:05 | 0:47:07 | |
Miles ahead from last year. | 0:47:07 | 0:47:09 | |
Yeah, we paced the mountain really well. | 0:47:09 | 0:47:13 | |
Nice and easy on the first hill. | 0:47:13 | 0:47:14 | |
We'll stop and get the fish supper at Killin. | 0:47:14 | 0:47:16 | |
Is that allowed? Drew is the team captain, though, so he decides. | 0:47:16 | 0:47:19 | |
I just do what I'm told. | 0:47:19 | 0:47:20 | |
-We can go after! -I just do what I'm told. | 0:47:20 | 0:47:22 | |
-There's no stopping. -Well done, boys. | 0:47:22 | 0:47:25 | |
Bit of a slow start to the cycle, which involves running uphill, | 0:47:25 | 0:47:29 | |
and I have to say that Drew Sharkey and Stuart MacLeod | 0:47:29 | 0:47:32 | |
are looking in great shape. | 0:47:32 | 0:47:35 | |
I wonder just what Sean and Andy will look like | 0:47:35 | 0:47:39 | |
when they come into transition | 0:47:39 | 0:47:41 | |
because they'll know there's a huge amount of work to do. | 0:47:41 | 0:47:44 | |
Five hours 45, and they're heading out on the bike. | 0:47:44 | 0:47:48 | |
So, here is Sean McFarlane and Andy Gray, our second-place racers. | 0:47:50 | 0:47:53 | |
Sean won, of course, last year with Drew Sharkey. | 0:47:53 | 0:47:56 | |
This is a huge performance from Sean McFarlane and his team-mate | 0:47:56 | 0:47:59 | |
considering, last year, they got to this point at quarter to two. | 0:47:59 | 0:48:04 | |
It's now one o'clock, | 0:48:04 | 0:48:05 | |
so they are 45 minutes ahead, but bad news for them | 0:48:05 | 0:48:08 | |
is Drew Sharkey and his partner are a further 20 minutes ahead of that. | 0:48:08 | 0:48:12 | |
How are you feeling, all right? | 0:48:12 | 0:48:14 | |
Yeah. A bit stiff, actually. | 0:48:14 | 0:48:16 | |
You come off the hill and then you're lodged in a canoe, | 0:48:16 | 0:48:19 | |
so your knees and hips and thighs can get a bit tight | 0:48:19 | 0:48:24 | |
and it all stiffens up a bit. | 0:48:24 | 0:48:25 | |
There's no easy parts of the course, so you have to, kind of, | 0:48:25 | 0:48:29 | |
keep pushing forward the whole way, really. | 0:48:29 | 0:48:31 | |
Test yourself, put yourself out of your comfort zone | 0:48:31 | 0:48:34 | |
and really get to see quite how much | 0:48:34 | 0:48:37 | |
you can endure through the course of the day, so it is a good challenge. | 0:48:37 | 0:48:40 | |
So this is Stuart Gregory and Paul Daccus | 0:48:42 | 0:48:44 | |
getting a nice little rhythm going there. | 0:48:44 | 0:48:47 | |
Just as I say it, they break the rhythm. | 0:48:47 | 0:48:50 | |
Paul at the back, Stuart at the front. | 0:48:50 | 0:48:52 | |
And they are 15 minutes behind Sean McFarlane. | 0:48:52 | 0:48:56 | |
-Third, boys, well done. -Thanks. | 0:48:57 | 0:48:59 | |
-Paul, are you feeling OK? -Yeah. | 0:48:59 | 0:49:01 | |
-Yeah, feel very good, yeah. -Looking comfortable. | 0:49:01 | 0:49:03 | |
-We will see how I feel after the bike. -Only 34 miles, boys, nothing. | 0:49:03 | 0:49:06 | |
A little Sunday afternoon stroll. | 0:49:06 | 0:49:08 | |
-Have a lovely time, boys. -Thank you. -Excellent effort, well done. | 0:49:08 | 0:49:12 | |
We will see you in a couple of hours, eh? | 0:49:12 | 0:49:14 | |
-Yeah, hopefully! -Cheers. | 0:49:14 | 0:49:16 | |
So Stuart MacLeod and Drew Sharkey speeding their way | 0:49:16 | 0:49:19 | |
over the beautiful bridge at the Falls of Dochart, here, | 0:49:19 | 0:49:21 | |
making their way into Killin. | 0:49:21 | 0:49:23 | |
Looks as though they've opened up a big lead. | 0:49:23 | 0:49:25 | |
It is a wee sprint for Stuart. | 0:49:25 | 0:49:27 | |
It is a marathon for me but it's a wee sprint for Stuart. | 0:49:27 | 0:49:30 | |
That is the interesting thing about the two of us, | 0:49:31 | 0:49:33 | |
is that Stuart can go all day, in fact, he can go for multiple days, | 0:49:33 | 0:49:37 | |
and I am the slight risk in the whole thing | 0:49:37 | 0:49:41 | |
that I could crack towards the end | 0:49:41 | 0:49:43 | |
but we will just have to manage that carefully. | 0:49:43 | 0:49:46 | |
You're always a team, so you're only as quick | 0:49:46 | 0:49:48 | |
as the slowest man in that discipline. | 0:49:48 | 0:49:50 | |
So I think you just need to discuss it, manage it, | 0:49:50 | 0:49:52 | |
you're not racing each other. You're a team. | 0:49:52 | 0:49:55 | |
So, I think that's it and you have to talk about that, | 0:49:55 | 0:49:57 | |
or else it is not going to work out well. | 0:49:57 | 0:49:59 | |
So this is Sean McFarlane and Andy Gray, | 0:50:00 | 0:50:04 | |
making their way across the bridge now. | 0:50:04 | 0:50:06 | |
It looks to be about a 20-minute gap at the moment | 0:50:06 | 0:50:09 | |
between the frontrunners and these guys. | 0:50:09 | 0:50:12 | |
Can they make up that time with the distance they have left? | 0:50:12 | 0:50:16 | |
I would say it is unlikely. | 0:50:16 | 0:50:18 | |
People think racing in pairs is easier | 0:50:18 | 0:50:19 | |
but it is actually, in many ways, more difficult | 0:50:19 | 0:50:22 | |
because any difference is really accentuated. | 0:50:22 | 0:50:25 | |
And it can become a big problem, | 0:50:25 | 0:50:27 | |
so you need to be almost perfectly matched. | 0:50:27 | 0:50:30 | |
That's the key. And no-one is. | 0:50:30 | 0:50:32 | |
No pair is perfectly matched and any discrepancy is really amplified | 0:50:32 | 0:50:34 | |
in a race of this nature, so it is quite difficult. | 0:50:34 | 0:50:37 | |
Paul Daccus and Stuart Gregory in third place. | 0:50:39 | 0:50:43 | |
They were 15 minutes behind the second pair at transition | 0:50:43 | 0:50:46 | |
and that gap has now widened. | 0:50:46 | 0:50:48 | |
On the bike we're pretty evenly matched, | 0:50:50 | 0:50:52 | |
so we take our turns and we make good progress. | 0:50:52 | 0:50:56 | |
If somebody starts dropping back the best thing to do is to | 0:50:56 | 0:50:59 | |
leave them and then they have to catch up even faster. | 0:50:59 | 0:51:01 | |
It is about encouraging the other person | 0:51:02 | 0:51:04 | |
because, over eight hours of exercise, | 0:51:04 | 0:51:06 | |
there are times when you feel good and times when you don't. | 0:51:06 | 0:51:09 | |
So a little, sort of, happy word from your colleague | 0:51:09 | 0:51:13 | |
makes a bit of difference. | 0:51:13 | 0:51:14 | |
Sometimes a bit of stick, sometimes a bit of carrot. | 0:51:14 | 0:51:16 | |
Racers are now piling into the transition from kayak to bike. | 0:51:17 | 0:51:22 | |
And everyone has a story to tell. | 0:51:22 | 0:51:24 | |
The wind is amazing out there. It takes you all over the place. | 0:51:24 | 0:51:27 | |
Yeah, the waves, you occasionally catch one | 0:51:27 | 0:51:29 | |
and it feels like you go about ten metres, it's great. | 0:51:29 | 0:51:32 | |
We couldn't stay straight. | 0:51:32 | 0:51:34 | |
I think the legs need to wake up a little bit. | 0:51:34 | 0:51:36 | |
Yeah, it is pretty tough. | 0:51:36 | 0:51:38 | |
Do you get cold in the boat, or were you OK? | 0:51:38 | 0:51:40 | |
Not too bad, actually, the weather is perfect today so it is great. | 0:51:40 | 0:51:45 | |
At one stage my partner and I nearly fell in | 0:51:45 | 0:51:47 | |
so thankfully we made it safely back. | 0:51:47 | 0:51:48 | |
It has taken me a good ten minutes to warm up. | 0:51:48 | 0:51:50 | |
I'm not going to lie. | 0:51:50 | 0:51:52 | |
It is still a close-run race for the women. | 0:51:52 | 0:51:54 | |
Alice Parsons and Lydia Ashby in the lead, | 0:51:54 | 0:51:57 | |
but only by three minutes. | 0:51:57 | 0:51:59 | |
How are we doing? | 0:51:59 | 0:52:00 | |
Good. We were taking this quite uncompetitively | 0:52:00 | 0:52:03 | |
but we have suddenly become competitive. | 0:52:03 | 0:52:06 | |
We didn't capsize. It was all right! | 0:52:06 | 0:52:08 | |
Thank you, goodbye! | 0:52:08 | 0:52:10 | |
Well done, guys. Keep it going. | 0:52:10 | 0:52:12 | |
And it's neck and neck now between the top two women's teams, | 0:52:12 | 0:52:16 | |
Fern Adams and Emily Lester are now in transition. | 0:52:16 | 0:52:19 | |
Fern is raring to go, but Emily is suffering. | 0:52:19 | 0:52:23 | |
Oh, she's struggling. Look at that. She can barely walk! | 0:52:23 | 0:52:26 | |
What's happened to you? Have you got blisters? | 0:52:26 | 0:52:29 | |
Oh, yeah. Oooh! | 0:52:29 | 0:52:30 | |
That just gives you a sense of the effort these girls have put in. | 0:52:30 | 0:52:34 | |
A horrible case of blisters. | 0:52:34 | 0:52:35 | |
Every step is miserable. | 0:52:35 | 0:52:38 | |
And when you get on the bike, who says that will be much better? | 0:52:38 | 0:52:41 | |
Hello! A bit hard. | 0:52:41 | 0:52:44 | |
It's going to be a fun one. | 0:52:44 | 0:52:47 | |
That is going to be the longest cycle I have ever done. | 0:52:47 | 0:52:49 | |
I have done about 30 miles but the extra four, I think, | 0:52:49 | 0:52:52 | |
on the stretch home. | 0:52:52 | 0:52:53 | |
At least, if you start pedalling, you keep rolling on the bike. | 0:52:53 | 0:52:56 | |
So that's a good thing. | 0:52:56 | 0:52:58 | |
With swimming, or walking, if you stop, you stop. | 0:52:58 | 0:53:01 | |
Hey! | 0:53:01 | 0:53:03 | |
The road stretches ever onwards for Fern and Emily, | 0:53:03 | 0:53:07 | |
but the fastest men have only a few turns of the wheel to go. | 0:53:07 | 0:53:11 | |
Well, this is incredible stuff from the top two performers here | 0:53:11 | 0:53:15 | |
at the Kindrochit 2017, Stuart MacLeod and Drew Sharkey. | 0:53:15 | 0:53:20 | |
Drew Sharkey won this last year with Sean McFarlane, | 0:53:20 | 0:53:23 | |
and this year he has won it with Stuart MacLeod | 0:53:23 | 0:53:26 | |
and he's won it by a country mile. | 0:53:26 | 0:53:29 | |
The course record in the Kindrochit Quadrathlon | 0:53:29 | 0:53:31 | |
is eight hours and three minutes. | 0:53:31 | 0:53:33 | |
With a time of seven hours 37 minutes, | 0:53:33 | 0:53:39 | |
last year's champion Drew Sharkey, alongside Stuart MacLeod | 0:53:39 | 0:53:44 | |
become champions 2017. | 0:53:44 | 0:53:46 | |
A new course record. | 0:53:46 | 0:53:48 | |
Absolutely smashed it. | 0:53:48 | 0:53:50 | |
Great effort. Great effort, boys, amazing. | 0:53:53 | 0:53:55 | |
Look at the pair of you. | 0:53:55 | 0:53:56 | |
You look like you have been out for a wee stroll in the afternoon. | 0:53:56 | 0:53:59 | |
My main concern was us. | 0:53:59 | 0:54:00 | |
You have just got to manage the effort | 0:54:00 | 0:54:02 | |
and everyone else is obviously doing their thing. | 0:54:02 | 0:54:04 | |
And I knew at the end, I knew when we are cycling at the end, | 0:54:04 | 0:54:06 | |
me and Drew have ridden bikes before, | 0:54:06 | 0:54:08 | |
so I knew if we just jumped on our bikes we would be quite happy. | 0:54:08 | 0:54:11 | |
I think we conserved our energy on the first hill, which was key. | 0:54:11 | 0:54:14 | |
-Right. -We just took the first climb really easy | 0:54:14 | 0:54:16 | |
and then just warmed up into it. | 0:54:16 | 0:54:18 | |
So that is all the sweeter this year, is it? | 0:54:18 | 0:54:20 | |
Yeah, quite nice. | 0:54:20 | 0:54:22 | |
Well, the course record at the Kindrochit Quadrathlon | 0:54:24 | 0:54:27 | |
is...eight hours and three minutes | 0:54:28 | 0:54:32 | |
and here comes Andy Gray, | 0:54:32 | 0:54:34 | |
leading Sean McFarlane down into the finish. | 0:54:34 | 0:54:37 | |
They are seven hours 54 minutes into this race, | 0:54:37 | 0:54:40 | |
so if they get a bend on | 0:54:40 | 0:54:42 | |
they will break the record. | 0:54:42 | 0:54:44 | |
However, they are 20 minutes behind this year's champions. | 0:54:44 | 0:54:48 | |
Look at that, the leg coming off the bike nice and slowly. | 0:54:48 | 0:54:51 | |
Here we go, this is an amazing performance. | 0:54:51 | 0:54:54 | |
And they get to the finish line in a time of seven hours 56 minutes, | 0:54:54 | 0:54:59 | |
which would have broken the record | 0:54:59 | 0:55:02 | |
but, of course, Drew Sharkey and Stuart MacLeod | 0:55:02 | 0:55:06 | |
came in in seven hours 37, | 0:55:06 | 0:55:09 | |
but second place for the pair of them. | 0:55:09 | 0:55:11 | |
We are friends again! Kiss and make up. | 0:55:12 | 0:55:15 | |
Hats off to these guys, these guys were... | 0:55:15 | 0:55:17 | |
We're happy, we are very happy for these guys. | 0:55:17 | 0:55:19 | |
They are untouchable, just incredible. | 0:55:19 | 0:55:21 | |
If you said at the start of the day, | 0:55:21 | 0:55:23 | |
"Here is the time, do you want to take that?" | 0:55:23 | 0:55:25 | |
-I would have said yes. -Absolutely. | 0:55:25 | 0:55:27 | |
And then if you have said, "And you'll come second." | 0:55:27 | 0:55:29 | |
Fair enough. | 0:55:29 | 0:55:31 | |
So here's our third-place racers, | 0:55:32 | 0:55:34 | |
Stuart Gregory and Paul Daccus. | 0:55:34 | 0:55:37 | |
That is a monstrous bike leg they put in there. | 0:55:37 | 0:55:39 | |
Incredible performance. | 0:55:39 | 0:55:40 | |
Absolutely flying in. Looking quite comfortable. | 0:55:40 | 0:55:43 | |
Third-place, fantastic. | 0:55:44 | 0:55:46 | |
-8.13. -We finished 8.13. -Which is amazing. | 0:55:46 | 0:55:50 | |
If you had said 8.13 at the start of today, | 0:55:50 | 0:55:52 | |
-we definitely would have taken it. -Yeah. | 0:55:52 | 0:55:54 | |
I can't believe the other guys' times. | 0:55:54 | 0:55:57 | |
You don't mind not winning to guys like that. | 0:55:57 | 0:56:00 | |
So, confirmation of those final results for the men. | 0:56:01 | 0:56:05 | |
Paul Daccus and Stuart Gregory | 0:56:05 | 0:56:06 | |
came in third in a time of eight hours 13 minutes. | 0:56:06 | 0:56:08 | |
Second place were Sean McFarlane and Andy Gray in 7.56, | 0:56:09 | 0:56:15 | |
but nearly 20 minutes faster, | 0:56:15 | 0:56:17 | |
Drew Sharkey and Stuart MacLeod | 0:56:17 | 0:56:19 | |
outstripped everyone else to come in first | 0:56:19 | 0:56:22 | |
in seven hours and 37 minutes. | 0:56:22 | 0:56:24 | |
And they set that new course record. | 0:56:24 | 0:56:26 | |
Now it is nearly all over for the women and this is amazing! | 0:56:28 | 0:56:32 | |
12 and three-quarter hours after setting off this morning | 0:56:32 | 0:56:35 | |
there's only a minute between the top two teams. | 0:56:35 | 0:56:37 | |
We finished! Wahoo! | 0:56:37 | 0:56:40 | |
Alice Parsons and Lydia Ashby are, much to their surprise, | 0:56:40 | 0:56:43 | |
the first to complete the bike. | 0:56:43 | 0:56:44 | |
Yay! | 0:56:44 | 0:56:46 | |
Let's not believe it until we're actually through. | 0:56:46 | 0:56:49 | |
After swimming across Loch Tay, | 0:56:49 | 0:56:50 | |
15 miles of running, a seven-mile kayak, and 34 miles on the bike, | 0:56:50 | 0:56:55 | |
Alice and Lydia come across the finish line in 12 hours 46 minutes. | 0:56:55 | 0:57:00 | |
OK. Again! | 0:57:01 | 0:57:02 | |
It could hardly be any closer. | 0:57:02 | 0:57:04 | |
Fern Adams and Emily Lester power over the line | 0:57:04 | 0:57:06 | |
in 12 hours 47 minutes. | 0:57:06 | 0:57:08 | |
What a fantastic result for both teams. | 0:57:08 | 0:57:11 | |
I honestly thought we'd be rolling in at about 10:30pm, so... | 0:57:11 | 0:57:15 | |
We've got loads of time! | 0:57:15 | 0:57:16 | |
Big high one! | 0:57:16 | 0:57:18 | |
So after a long, long day of racing, | 0:57:19 | 0:57:21 | |
the women's results look like this. | 0:57:21 | 0:57:23 | |
In third place, Chantelle Klijnhout and Karin Brogtrop | 0:57:23 | 0:57:27 | |
from the Netherlands completed the race in 15 hours and two minutes. | 0:57:27 | 0:57:32 | |
Emily Lester and Fern Adams were second in 12.47, | 0:57:32 | 0:57:36 | |
but, just one minute faster, | 0:57:36 | 0:57:38 | |
Lydia Ashby and Alice Parsons came in first in 12 hours 46 minutes. | 0:57:38 | 0:57:43 | |
The action and this year's Artemis Great Kindrochit Quadrathlon | 0:57:45 | 0:57:49 | |
has been truly epic. | 0:57:49 | 0:57:50 | |
Our congratulations to every single person who's competed here today. | 0:57:50 | 0:57:54 | |
We'll be taking a short break over Christmas but, worry not, | 0:57:54 | 0:57:58 | |
Cameron McNeish will be back once again | 0:57:58 | 0:58:00 | |
exploring this great country of ours. | 0:58:00 | 0:58:03 | |
I am going to be visiting some fascinating places | 0:58:03 | 0:58:06 | |
that are rich in legend, folklore, and culture. | 0:58:06 | 0:58:10 | |
And I hope you will join me during the festive season, | 0:58:10 | 0:58:13 | |
as I take another journey on Scotland's roads less travelled. | 0:58:13 | 0:58:16 | |
This time around the very heart of Scotland. | 0:58:16 | 0:58:20 | |
So, lots to look forward to | 0:58:20 | 0:58:22 | |
and in the New Year we will be back | 0:58:22 | 0:58:24 | |
for the one and only Strathpuffer 24. | 0:58:24 | 0:58:27 | |
Let's hope there's plenty of snow. | 0:58:27 | 0:58:29 | |
In the meantime, bye for now. | 0:58:29 | 0:58:31 |