From sail to summit

Sam Griffiths reveals the highs and lows of Shrewsbury School Hunt Running Club’s debut in the twoday Scottish Islands Peaks Race

- Sam Griffiths

‘Runners!’ went the cry. Lamlash, on the Isle of Arran at first light on a Sunday is a fairly inauspicious little hamlet. Yet it would soon welcome the remainder of the 40 boats that had silently crept into the bay having sailed through the night round the Mull of Kintyre. Now the sailors waited anxiously for their runners to return from the 19-mile round trip up Goat Fell; the sails were impatiently waiting to fill, the dinghies, ready to transport the runners out, were bobbing in anticipation.

The stumbling figures of Tom Jackson, Sam Western and Simon Adney came collapsing into the dinghy, where they put their lifejackets on before a frantic row to our Pocock 45 Brown Bear. We had a crucial 17-minute lead over our nearest rivals. There was now just the small matter of a 15-mile sail across the Firth of Clyde to Troon and the finish. Surely nothing could stop us winning the Youth Section now?

First held in 1983, the Scottish Islands Peaks Race is an adventure race for teams of sailors and fell runners. Since 1992 there has also been a hotly contested Youth Section, with teams of six pupils running in pairs with an adult. The race is non-stop and starts in Oban with a short 4-mile hill run. You then sail to Mull, run 18 miles over Beinn Talaidh, sail to Jura, run 14 miles over some of the Paps, sail to Arran, run 19 miles up and down Goat Fell and then sail to Troon.

RARING TO GO