Run Britain Day 123: From Acharacle to Ardnamurchan Point

I couldn’t have woken up feeling less ready to run a marathon to the most westerly point on mainland Britain. But I ignored the pangs of ‘stay in bed’ and the excuses that could have been made by the very icy ground.

And I am glad I did. Day 123 has been among the best so far.

We enjoyed our first stop in the car park of the Ardnamurchan Distillery, which has a lovely gift shop and very friendly owner. Who didn’t seem to mind the fact that we sat for 30 minutes eating crumpets in her car park and then came in to use the toilet.

The Ardnamurchan peninsula is stunning and I am so glad we got to enjoy it on such a perfect day. The view is more and more breathtaking at every corner. And on every corner, there is also a post box!

Our second stop was in the tiny village of Kilchoan, which is as far west as you can go before the road becomes a single track and turning the motor home around becomes quite a stressful task. The tarmac on the single track out to the lighthouse is fantastic though - not a pothole in sight.

I don’t know if I would have bothered with this peninsula if it wasn’t for Nick, who made sure I knew where all the compass points were when we sat down to plan my route. He is particularly sensitive about the most westerly point because he missed it and had to drive back. But not many people who run the coastline of Britain come all the way out here because it is just one road. In a crazy coincidence, my time to run the Strava segment out to the lighthouse at the most westerly point was less than 30s short of Nick’s time.

We were cheered into the lighthouse by a lovely family who had driven past us multiple times along the one road that we had been running all day. Those are the kind of interactions that I have appreciated the most in the last few months - kind strangers who stop to have a chat about what I am doing.

I’ve decided I only need to run the road in one direction, so it was back to Acharacle tonight and back to the very kind people at Loch Sheil garage, who have let us use their fantastic shower and plug into the electricity for two nights now. Which is a good thing because the temperature is supposed to drop to minus 12 tonight.

I feel like the icy ground excuse might be lurking again tomorrow morning. But I am feeling great after such a wonderful day of running.