I've got a colleague/friend at work who recently completed the Scottish National Trail. I wrote a short article, copied below, about his genuinely incredible and world-class achievement. The article speaks for itself, so no further detail here! I cycled out to visit him one day when he was on the trail, and I met him off the train after he had finished. He didn't look like a man who had just done what he had done, he looked remarkably fresh! I wish I could do the like!
Edinburgh resident Matt Girvan has just broken the record for the fastest time to complete the Scottish National Trail. The demanding 864km route winds its way from Kirk Yetholm near the English border, through the Borders, Central Belt, Cairngorms and the remote far north-west before finishing at Cape Wrath. Girvan completed the route unassisted in a time of 13 days, 19 hours and 35 minutes, eclipsing the previous record by a full 4 days. His accomplishment deserves high acclaim, ranking as a major achievement in the field of international adventure racing.
The modest
29-year-old New Zealander, a mechanical engineer who works for Scottish Water,
covered 50-70km daily, putting in 14-16 hour days on the trail. He ran where
possible, and power-hiked the sections where the terrain and elevation made
running impossible. He chose to complete the trail in a “self-supported”
manner, carrying all his own equipment including a tent, sleeping bag,
clothing, navigational equipment, and enough food and drink for each section
between top-ups in villages along the way.
Girvan, no stranger
to feats of endurance, was elated on finishing and breaking the record,
enthusing: “It’s only sinking in now! My main emotion is relief, I’m amazed at
how well it all played out. I thought 15 days might be possible if it went
well, but I’m over the moon to claim a new solo self-supported record of less
than 14 days. It’s nice not to have to do it all again tomorrow! I’m looking
forward to a shower, some proper hot meals, and maybe a wee dram!”
Earlier in the
summer, Girvan completed the arduous “Bob Graham Round”, summiting 42 peaks in
the Lake District over a 106km circuit, in less than 24 hours. This gave him confidence
to press on with his plans for the Scottish National Trail. He explained: “The
trail seemed like a brilliant way for me to get a snapshot of many iconic
Scottish landscapes in one trip. It normally takes 6-7 weeks but I couldn’t
take that much time off work. So I started to wonder how quickly I could do
it…”
Meticulous planning
and training underpinned Girvan’s success and he related, “There were a lot of
good times on the trail. The scenery was unreal and I was generally lucky with
the weather. The infamous Scottish midges didn’t bother me too much! Sharing
sunsets in remote glens with only the wild deer for company was amazing. I
celebrated my 29th birthday on the trail and made it to Kinlochewe just in time
for last orders – toasted sandwiches, soup and coffee – my first hot food for
days!”
It wasn’t all plain
sailing however. A bone stress injury meant Girvan was unable to run at all in
the latter part of 2019, but he battled back to fitness throughout 2020. On the
trail, he had to contend with fatigue, blisters, poor weather, darkness,
difficult logistics, and having to ration his food and drink in order to have
enough to make it to the next village – often a couple of days away. He
admitted: “It was easily the toughest thing I’ve done in terms of overall
fatigue on my mind and body. Getting out of my sleeping bag every morning at
5am in the dark and cold was tough. I was often tempted to stay in my tent for
a few more hours, but I knew this would be eroding the overall time. Once I
actually got up and got moving, things were better!”
The final day to Cape
Wrath proved exceptionally challenging, with a 14-day finishing time
tantalisingly close. Girvan described the final stretch, saying, “The finish
didn’t yield easily. It took a 19-hour day to get the job done, with the final
few hours spent navigating in darkness through bog in bitterly cold rain before
I finally finished at the lighthouse at 1:09am on 25th September.”
Girvan’s exploits
have also doubled as a fundraiser for WaterAid and he has been raising
awareness of the work the charity does: enabling people to gain access to safe
water, sanitation and hygiene education. He explained: “WaterAid are a
fantastic charity and I’ve come to know about their amazing work through
Scottish Water’s partnership with them. Their focus on hygiene seemed
particularly important in the current pandemic. Also, the importance of finding
clean drinking water was a big focus whilst on the trail, so there were lots of
parallels and I wanted to try to raise some money and awareness.” To date,
Girvan has raised almost £4000, and his fundraising website is still available
on: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/matt-walks
A GPS tracker allowed
many thousands of followers to track Girvan’s progress in real time, with one
saying, “Following this has been the highlight of the last 6 months!” Girvan
was overwhelmed with the support, messages and donations from all over the globe,
commenting: “It has been unbelievable, and it really was a highlight of the
trip. It made me feel that I wasn’t out there alone. The sum raised for
WaterAid is truly incredible!” In an illustration of the sense of community
amongst ultra-runners, Girvan was eager to pay tribute to the previous record
holder, stating, “Special thanks also to Graham Nash of Carnethy Hill Runners,
who was very helpful with his advice and encouragement.”
And what next for
this intrepid, elite endurance athlete? He grinned: “For now, resting, sleeping
and eating! I’ll put together a trip report and make a short film of the
journey, but in terms of sport, I’ll be back to the drawing board. I’d like to
channel my strength back into shorter-distance running in the hope that there
might be some events coming up, but I’ll make sure to rest up well before
thinking about that!”
I also wrote a slightly less formal half-way update:
#walkingforwater update (should
really be #runningforwater !)
I’m a fairly close
colleague/friend of Matt’s. I’ve been on leave for the last week and a half,
and I cycled out to visit Matt on the trail. Matt is an experienced
hiker/runner/endurance athlete and has completed challenges all over the world.
He has told me a bit about some of these challenges. I’ve also dabbled in
endurance sport myself, in single-day events and in multi-day or month-long
events. Matt and I had an interesting socially-distanced debate over what was
tougher – Matt’s Bob Graham Round (a fell-running challenge in the Lake
District which involves climbing 42 peaks over a 106km route, with 8200m of
ascent, in less than 24 hours), or “Everesting” on a bike (cycling up and down
the same hill repeatedly until you have climbed the height of Mount Everest).
But Matt’s 864km Scottish
National Trail challenge, from Kirk Yetholm on the English border to Cape Wrath
in the far remote north-west, where he is attempting to break the solo
unsupported record (currently standing at 18 days – Matt is hoping for around
15 days), is so far beyond anything I can possibly get my head around – if he
completes it and takes the record (and I believe he will), I would rank it
right up there as a major elite global/international endurance achievement. He
is also raising money for WaterAid and raising awareness of the importance of
water sources – it will be essential for him to be able to access clean, safe
water every day.
The first thing that struck me,
when he appeared on the ridge, still some distance away, was how fast he was
moving. To describe his challenge as “Walking For Water” isn’t doing justice to
the reality of what he is doing. He is running, as much as he possibly can. He
needs to move rapidly to make sure he covers enough distance every day (50 to
80km per day, depending on the difficulty of the terrain and the elevation), so
he can have a chance at breaking the record time for the trail.
He ran towards me, and was
happy to briefly stop and chat. He was remarkably fresh. Admittedly it was
quite early in his challenge, but he was very upbeat and in good shape. I had
brought with me a WaterAid t-shirt, intending to give it to him, so that he
could take it with him and use it for photo opportunities at various locations
– lochs, reservoirs, top-up-taps etc. Matt is intending to complete this 864km
route entirely unsupported, and so couldn’t accept the t-shirt. He had
meticulously planned every single item he would need, trying only to take what
was absolutely necessary in order to keep the weight of his rucksack down. He
wouldn’t take the t-shirt as it could be seen as an extra layer which could be
used to change into if a t-shirt got wet, or an extra layer of warmth. He had
decided on his kit before he started, and couldn’t change anything while en
route, otherwise it would be seen as outside support and would invalidate the
attempt. Regardless, he did agree to wear the t-shirt briefly for a couple of
photographs!
He told me that he travelled
down from Edinburgh to the start, via public transport, after a day of work.
His challenges immediately started – he had been hoping to take a bus directly
to Kirk Yetholm but it turned out this wasn’t operating, so he had a to take a
train and then a bus to Wooler (in England!), followed by a night-time 20km
“warm up” hike just to reach his starting point – an extra 20km in the dark
probably wasn’t what he needed before he had even reached the start… but he got
through it with his usual good humour and made the best of it.
I asked if I could lift his
rucksack. Another thing that immediately struck me was just how heavy it was!
He had endeavoured to keep the weight down as much as possible, but he was
attempting an 864km route on foot, solo, unsupported, through some of the most
remote and inhospitable terrain in Scotland, if not the UK, if not Europe.
Things like a tent, a sleeping bag, maps for the route, a GPS tracker, torch,
changes of clothes, clothing for the worst of the Scottish weather, first aid
supplies, and enough food and water to get through perhaps a couple of days
without ever seeing any form of civilisation – all these things add up to what
I thought was a fairly heavy rucksack – I wouldn’t have fancied walking with it
for a day, never mind running with it for two weeks…
Broadly speaking, the “easier”
section is the first half of the route, with less severe elevation changes and
also generally never more than half a day from a town or village where supplies
can be replenished (one comment was “Sainsbury’s was brilliant – food, water
and a toilet last night and this morning!”) In the first half of the route,
Matt has completed higher mileage per day, in order that he might have some
leeway up in the wild west and wild north sections. He is anticipating having
to carry food and water in greater quantities during the more remote and
challenging sections, weighing him down a bit: another comment was that the
descent of the infamous Corrieyairack Pass was “pretty tough with a rucksack
on”, but it seems the incredible sunset and sunrise and having the entire pass
to himself more than made up for it…
He is well into the way of
things now, probably over two-thirds of the way through, well on schedule,
everything seeming to hold up as well as he could hope, and he has a good daily
routine – wake up before dawn, pack things away, run/walk/eat/drink, then
50-80km later pitch the tent and sleep! The more remote sections of the far
north and west await, and the Indian summer seems to have passed (Matt’s
comment from a few days ago: “It’s HOT!!!”), meaning less clement weather may be
ahead.
He said, “There’s much more
epic scenery now but the trails are certainly much tougher. I had a few days
where I was struggling to keep to my schedule but I seem to have picked up and
am just ahead of schedule now. My feet and body are pretty beat up, but I am
managing, and I always seem to recover surprisingly well overnight!”
Hopefully everyone’s support,
the lure of the finish and the record-breaking time will help him through his
final week, as will knowing he has raised a significant sum of money for
WaterAid – currently standing at almost £2500! He’s very grateful for all the
support and is sorry that he isn’t able to post more regular updates – his
attention on the trail is fully focused on each step, and making sure that each
step is a “good step” – he certainly doesn’t want to be twisting an ankle or
tripping etc. Often he is out of reach of any sort of phone signal as well, so
I said I would post this update on his behalf!
Some links:
The Scottish National Trail:
https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/scottish-national-trail.shtml
Matt’s GPS tracker:
https://maps.findmespot.com/s/PXDB#history/assets
Matt’s fundraising page:
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/matt-walks
