70 Wild Miles; A charity triathlon in aid of CLIC Sargent

Caring for Children with Cancer.

The Course……

Although the title of the event is 70 Wild Miles, I wouldn't take that distance as absolute gospel! As far as I know, nobody has actually gone out and measured the course distance accurately. And when you realise that the event was run over one course for the first six years, with the name being carried over to a course with a different Start and Finish, you will realise that that it should perhaps be called:-  

"Approximately 70 Wild Miles".

The present course starts from the White Corries ski centre with the competitors assembling in the centre's car park for the cycling stage of the event. As this part of the event takes place over public roads, it is only sensible that there is no mass start and instead the competitors are sent off at timed intervals Southwards on the A82 road towards Tyndrum. As they pass through the often bleak and windswept, though scenic, length of Glencoe they may well realise why the event now takes place in early June. Sweeping down the hill on the final approach to Tyndrum they will be directed at its base onto the A85 road Westwards towards Taynuilt and the completion of the first stage of their exhaustive day.

OS flythroughs of the course.

Thanks Craig; by use of some software tools we have 3D representations of the route you’ll experience on the day.

Cycle Stage

Canoe Stage

The Run.

Clicking on the link will open a .wmf, this should play in media player. Depending on your internet connection it may be advantageous to right click on the link as save to your local hard disk first.

Once at Taynuilt it's a rest stop until everyone has arrived and is ready to begin the Canoe stage. For safety reasons this part of the course is taken as a mass start with all the safety and rescue boats in attendance. As Loch Etive is a tidal sea loch the weather is of first importance and in fact in 1996 the weather was so bad that the Canoe section had to be cancelled due to real fears for the competitors safety.

Please read the following  PDFs for important safety information.

1. Outdoor Education Safety Document.

2. Canoe Guidance.

Click here for a view of Glencoe

or click here for a detailed course breakdown.

Times for each running of the event are only really relevant to that year, due to the variations in conditions depending on the weather, And nowhere on the course is this more true than on Loch Etive. You might think that after this excitement the kind organisers would have had pity on the poor competitors and arranged a nice gentle run to the finish. Not a chance! The run section of the course has most of its length lying at angles, which would have mountain goats looking for an easier path (perhaps a light exaggeration?). The chief difficulty, however, is the fact that the course runs along a single lane road, which is the only access for the head of the loch. Thus the runners - especially those towards the end of the field - have to deal with traffic carrying spectators, organisers and eventually canoes in often-overloaded trailers!