When I’m not running in the fells you can probably find me fastpacking in the fells.
What is fastpacking I hear you say?
Much has been written about the subject which I don’t intend duplicating here but let me share my approach.
In a nutshell fastpacking is travelling for more than one day taking a lighweight approach. The benefts are it allows you to travel quicker and further. THe flipside is that you need to sacrifice some home comforts and high quality lightweight gear can be eye wateringly expensive.
Fastpacking can be done via a variety of methods of transport (foot, bike, kayak, ski-ing) but my main method is by foot (although I’d like to do more by bike in the future).
Most recenty I’ve fastpacked :
- Pennine Way
- Hadrians Wall Path
- Cleveland Way
- Around the Cairngorms
- Tyne and Wear Heritage Trail
- Around Iceland
As well as countless multi-day trips and overnighters in Scotland, The Lake District and Cheviots.
I’ve also completed the OMM in 2019 and 2020 which is a type of fastpacking.
West Highland Way 2022
The West Highland Way has long tickled my fancy - I had ran the first 53 miles of it back in 2010 in the Highland Fling Race (my firrst ultra) so I was familiar with some of the route, although the more interesting sections lie north of Tyndrum. What better an adventure to have over the long bank holiday jubilee weekend.
When planning the trip I thought I’d be able to cover the 96 miles in 3 days relatively comfortably. The route is well graded, apart from a short section along Loch Lomond isn’t technical and generally sticks to low ground. However taking travel into consideration this would make very long days and I didn’t particularly relish the long drive back afterwards. I decided instead to give myself 4 days, starting from Fort William and heading south. Not many people do the route in this direction but it meant I got most of the travelling out of the way on the first day and wasn’t restricted by train times on the return.
Paddy Buckley 2022
I made an unsucessful attempt at a Paddy Buckley Round bak in 2018 (see write up https://robbrooks.run/running/paddybuckly2018/) and it’s been on my radar to have another go ever since but for a number of reasons I’ve never had the chance to go back.
A free long weekend in April presented the opportunity to fastpack the route over 3 days - the forecast was dry and relatively warm but windy. Katherine was wanting to do some big miles in preparation for her upcoming Bob Graham Round (which she stormed round in 21 hours 42 mins) so I asked her if she wanted tto come along. She thought about it for about 2 seconds and jumped at the chance.
