Legs, Lungs and Lack of sleep: My experiences on the HT550

The Highland Trail 550 is often described as the jewel in the crown of British bikepacking and it was one of the first races to truly capture my imagination. In 2018 some friends and I tried to tour the middle loop, vastly underestimating the severity of the terrain we got as far as Poolewe before throwing in the towel. But since that rainy week in August I was determined that I would race the route. It took four years before I could make it to the startline in Tyndrum. When I finally did arrive many faces both familiar and new but all friendly welcomed me with open arms. 

The journey to the start had had its ups and downs, training this year had been inconsistent with illness and injury.  I finally hit some flow post Dales Divide with a five week block of 15-20 hour weeks, hitting some power PB’s to boot. Yet two weeks before the start I started to feel super burned out. Whether it was overtraining, work stress, lack of proper recovery from DD, long covid, illness or most likely a combination of factors. I simply had no energy, both in training and daily life often struggling to stay awake during the day. I made the call to reassess my goals and take two weeks completely off the bike and arrive at the start well rested, even if not in 100% shape.

Not an ideal taper

From a kit and equipment point of view I felt as if I was well prepared. I was once again on my Mason RAW that had taken me to victory on the DD and the setup was near identical. I had made the addition of a hydration pack and some extra warm layers from dhb but other than that it was unchanged.

The rest helped a little but when the day came to travel up I was not feeling ready to go extended periods without sleeping and push my body to the limit. I told myself that my goal was clear: to finish. Anything else was a bonus however I find it hard not to get carried away and really stretch myself so If I were being truly honest it was “to finish but as fast as possible”

I slept like a log the night before and made my way to the unofficial race HQ of the Real Food Cafe for one last hearty meal before starting. Before long, we were sent on our way by some kind words from Annie and Liam, last year's winners. It’s easy to get sucked into the pace at the start and that's exactly what I did. I rode the first hour or so chatting with Simon who had come over to race from France. I noticed that he was carrying very little kit and not wearing socks. When he mentioned that he didn’t have a bivvy or tent with him I was shocked and had half a mind to tell him to go back and get one. I resisted the urge and told myself that he was an adult and can look after himself. All this chatting and we look down at our Garmins and realise that we have been cycling off route for the last 3km so double back and chase back on. 

I feel like a prize idiot for going so far wrong early at the start and costing myself about 20 mins. I chase back to the front and slowly overtake people feeling the need to justify myself as to why I was behind them . Looking back at the Strava this section was my only KOM of the route. Whilst passing a group of riders on the road I pull up alongside Rich Rothwell and just about exchange a nod before BAM! I’m on the deck, I had clipped his handlebars, It was my fault I knew it. I got up quickly and went over to Rich, he didn’t look good, clutching his side and looking a bit dazed. I stayed with him for a few minutes without really knowing what to do other than making sure that he wouldn't come into any more danger. He sends me on my way and I feel a sinking feeling that I have just ruined this guy's race through carelessness. I found out later that he had scratched from the race. With all of the adrenaline I hadn’t really realised that I had actually cut up my knee and the right side of my body pretty badly.

My hand was also aching and I was struggling to hold the bars. Was this race over? I decided to press on and see how it went. So I pedalled on for the next 20 mins or so. It soon becomes apparent that my shifting is a little clunky and as soon as I move into the granny gear to go up a hill the chain drops. This means one thing: a bent hanger. Luckily I brought a spare so I get to work and after 20 mins replace it and get going again. By this point my head is full of demons. Nothing was going smoothly, I had already lost an hour and we were only 30km in, my body was already broken but worse I had caused another rider's race to end. I remind myself that I am in a lucky position to even be there and press on through the negative thoughts. 

My haul of snacks from FA

With my mind wandering I neglect the beauty of the landscape but the Ben Alder singletrack climb and descent snap me out of it and I genuinely start to appreciate my position. As I crest the bealach I'm greeted by Annie who tells me that I'm only 10 mins off the lead. All of a sudden I'm back and have the urge to push myself once more. I've ridden this next bit a few times and before I know it I'm cresting the Corrieyairack pass and rolling into Fort Augustus for my first resupply. I grab a basket and stock up as I know that its around 24 hours until I reach Drumbeg. I’m joined by Simon and Jean and we exchange pleasantries before heading off together Simon drifts away up the steep gravel climb to Loch na Stack but I find him there struggling through the boulder field. There is a faint line that is rideable if you are lucky and I stick to it and just about manage to clean the section with only a couple of 5m pushes. That was the last I saw of SImon as I decided to put the power down a little and establish a gap. 

I love this next section as it's on the GBDURO route so I know it well. The Path of a Thousand Puddles lived up to its name and I cruised past Orrin dam before having to turn my lights on for the road section to Contin. One of my highlights of the night was coming down Allerdale and seeing a huge deer hit a 5m road gap ight in front of my face. For the first time in weeks I'm feeling good so I made the decision to press on through the night and make it to the Oykel bridge just after sunrise. 

The relative warmth of the Drumbeg stores greenhouse

The next highlight of the route was Bealach Horn, the most Northerly point of the route. There was some savage hike-a-bike through a peat bog to make it up there and I underestimated it for sure. However I made it over without too much drama and rolled down to Achfary, the end of the first GPS section about an hour up on record pace. Knowing that I hadn’t slept whereas Neil had I didn’t think much of it. It was never a target of mine but I had used the splits as a guide to approximate leg times. This moment was significant as we had been experiencing a headwind for the whole northward journey and I was looking for some assistance on the way back south. From here I was expecting a nice easy road section to drumbeg stores yet I was disappointed by how hilly the road turned out to be. It was here that I started to notice that my cough was starting to get worse. Nonetheless, I arrived at Drumbeg stores and was greeted by the owners who filled me with hot tea and loaded my pockets with enough food to get me to Poolewe. 

The next few hours I spent gearing myself up for the Ledmore traverse, a Hike-a-bike section that would complete the Northern loop. Soon Suilven looms and the traverse starts, the first few km are rideable in sections but soon it turns into a slog. That sort of terrain where you can ride 10m sections but you are probably better off just going on foot and keep moving forward. Progress is slow and isn’t helped by the rain which has been on and off for the past 24 hours now. When I arrive at the junction I see that I have lost about an hour over to Neil’s time in just this short section. A sign that either Im really tiring or the conditions were starting to take their toll, I had no idea as I didnt feel too bad. The answer soon came as the darkness fell and I began to see things, my mind was all over the place. The section to Ullapool should be fairly straightforward but my mind was ruined. I wasn’t feeling sleepy but I had lost my grip on reality. I didnt really know why I was cycling and felt like I had multiple voices in my head each with its own personality, it was pretty freaky. I had never felt like this before, especially after only one night without sleep. Nonetheless I was still pedalling and wasn’t too tired and made it to Ullapool where I found shelter from the rain under a bridge and set up my bivvy for a night's sleep. 

My broken spot tracker

The alarm was set for 2 hours but after 45 mins I woke myself up coughing and realised that my mat had a puncture so figured that it would be best just to get going again. The next section was the infamous crossing of Fisherfield, one of the most remote sections of the route. To warm up we had the Coffin Road a 9km stretch that on a fast day takes 1.5 hours but as I was crossing it in the dark and the ground was wet too me over three, things were starting to fall apart now, my front tyre lost traction in the muddy descent and I went over, covering myself in mud and snapping my Garmin mount. It took me a few minutes to get my spare one out and in doing so noticed that my tracker was busted, not sure when it happened but looking later I think it must have hit a rock or something during the hike-a-bike.

The crossing of Fisherfield itself was relatively straightforward, it was much more boggy than last time I rode it and the river crossing was up to my chest in places. I kept moving and made my way down to Poolewe via the long flowy singletrack descent. Here I refuelled and made use of the public facilities. From here I was into the unknown. The Tollie path was up ahead, I had heard that it wasn’t the best but it was by far the part of the route that I disliked the most, there were moments of joy in the odd slabby descent but mostly it was pushing your bike through a river bed, all in all I would say that it was less than fun. Eventually, however I made i to the road and into Kinlochlewe where I grabbed a quick drink and then pressed on up towards Torridon. 

Now my mind was sharp and legs were good so I put some pressure on the pedals all the way up to the highpoint just off Torridon. The climb was sublime, it was flowy with the odd technical section but mostly rideable. Upon cresting the pass I was rewarded by one of the best descents that Scotland has to offer, the slabs seemed to give unlimited traction and I was having a blast. There were of course the odd section that I had to push down but I’d love to be back with a bike that's a little bit more set up for the steep chutes. 

The climb up to Torridon

An audax Hotel

Torridon completed, I set my sights on making it to Dornie where I would get a couple of hours' kip. The road was smooth and I make good time through Strathcarron and up the hill, I was greeted by a nasty surprise that was Glen Ling. I was expecting a nice gravel track but instead only found a horrible overgrown boggy singletrack that at night I had to walk most of it. It's times like this that knowing the course would have really helped with my mental state as once again the voices in my head were back. It was odd as i didnt feel as if I was drifting off to sleep rather I was just insane. Additionally my lungs were so filled with gunk that I was struggling to maintain any sort of steady breathing. I do make it to Dornie eventually but must have lost a significant amount of time on what should have been an easy section. At Dornie I find a bus stop and get into my bivvy bag. I set my alarm for two hours but once again I woke up coughing after 90 mins. I pack my bags and start the push over towards Glen Affrick. This was one part of the route which I underestimated, whether it was due to my growing illness or just lack of energy but the hike-a-bike took  a couple of hours longer than I had initially expected. On the way up I saw a set of Maxxis tyre tracks and assumed that Huw had passed me in the night. He too had no tracker so I wasn’t that surprised especially as all of my energy was gone.  He must have been flying as I didnt even see his lights on the way up. He clearly had paced this way better than me. When I reached the bothy at the summit I saw that Lars’s bike was propped up against the side and he came out for a 5 min chat. He told me that he had got there three hours earlier, I spotted that he was running Maxxis as well and he didn’t see Huw pass. This made me think that I was in the lead again and gave me some good motivation so I enjoyed the descent through Glen Affrick even if the going was slower than what I would have hoped for. 

The next two climbs before FA went quick and I was in a good mental state when I hit the Spar for a second time. Andy and Tay were staking out the shop hoping to get a glimpse of what was going on at the front. It was good to see them and with my pockets loaded with scotch pies and sandwiches I leave for Fort William. A few Km down the great Glen way I meet Pete who is recording an audio log of the race, he rides with me for 10 mins or so and we talk through what’s going through my mind. As far as sustainable and non-intrusive documenting goes it was up there with the best. After leaving Pete, I checked my phone for the first time in a while and saw that Huw had in fact passed through FA about an hour before me. I was a little bit taken aback by this. It made sense when I thought it through and just goes to show how much people go to respect the unsupported nature of the rides that they didn’t tell me. I love it. 

Im now feeling motivated to push, so I stamp on the pedals to squeeze out some power. This was an unwise decision as over the next couple of hours my lungs fell apart. When I arrived in Fort William I was coughing more than not and unable to inhale deeply. Certainly suboptimal cycling performance. I take shelter from the rain under a bridge and think through my options and figured that I had best carry on. 

I don’t really remember much from the section along the West Highland Way past the initial gravel climb. My mental state was in bits and I was struggling to get enough oxygen to hold a high enough tempo to clear any of the rocky sections which meant that I did a lot of walking. When I arrived at Kinlochleven I was a mess and found refuge in the Trailracers Inn. I order a meal (or three) and call up 111 as I'm starting to worry about my long term health. When describing the symptoms they say that it is very clearly Bronchitis and there is nothing I can do but rest. It's around 1900 now and I sit in the pub and contemplate my options. I'm so close to pulling the pin. On one hand I feel that I have had enough excuses and it's sensible, no one would argue but on the other, was I just being wet? I also had in the back of my mind that with no SPOT tracker I had no safety net and in the rain and cold didn’t want to be the mug who called out MRT. I have big plans for the summer and didn’t want to derail them so eventually, I decided to compromise. After a great degree of looking I found a B&B for the night. The plan was to get a full night’s sleep and then roll into Tyndrum at a relaxed pace to claim the finish. 

My bloody top tube bag

So thats what happened, I slept for 12 hours or so and woke up at 8am to find the sheets covered in blood, whilst spooky at first it became clear that I had just had a colossal nose bleed and slept right through it. The rest had worked its magic and my lungs seemed to have been able to mostly clear themselves. The coughing was still there but less frequent and there was less gunk coming out. I leave the B&B around 10 and start the climb up to the Devils staircase, stopping periodically to try and stem the bleeding of my nose which had ruptured once again. It just seemed to keep on fishing blood so eventually I gave up and just got on with things. The final 40km or so pass quickly, its amazing how a full night's sleep can make everything better. There is one final sting in the tail but soon its over and I arrive in Tyndrum. I look later and my final time is 4 days 6 hours 13 mins. 

A broken man

At the time I didn’t really feel much of a sense of accomplishment. I wasn't convinced that I had achieved much by completing that last leg. My race ended in Kinlochleven and I was still down and kicking myself that I effectively pulled the plug there. I sat in the real food cafe for the rest of the afternoon and chatted with the rest of the riders as they came in and out. Huw had finished super fast and his time was only an hour off the FKT and in conditions that Alan had described as the worst he had ever seen, it's a ride he should be proud of. I clearly have a lot to learn from him. He tells me that in the days that come I will be glad that I finished and he was of course right. I'm glad that I got to the end. A finish of the HT550 is nothing to be sniffed at. 

One thing is for sure now: I can’t wait till next year.