If you are serious about eventual employment in a conservation related job I would investigate opportunities to get involved voluntarily throughout your course.
Did any of you pick up the quad track running down the 'ridge' between Second and Third Inchna Burns? Thats almost certainly the best way to be heading down, just pretty tricky to get onto it and if you are ok heading over tussocks maybe not worth worrying about.
Also lots of quad tracks up there and you can end up being on the wrong one!
I was up myself from about 3ish to 6ish checking out Ben Buck - Blairdenon and Blairdenon - Dumyat. I'm in the Ochils club myself but we even have a bit of a debate about the best options despite knowing the hills as best as anybody.
Funny to see a lot of stud marks in some pretty rarely visited places!
On last years first running of the race nobody went too astray, main wrong choice was probably dropping right down to Menstrie Glen rather than via Jerah going over to Dumyat. Eddie who was marshalling on Dumyat said it was pretty easy to tell who had taken the wrong option. I was on top of Ben Cleuch myself and had a fair number of people ask me where they were(!) or what hill they should do next, Buck or Ever.
What kind of racers are we talking about? If its hill racers I can tell you that the ones I run and race with certainly don't all rate Inov-8s that highly. Had a friend whos outing in the Jura race ended somewhat prematurely with exactly the same sole peeling as posted at the start, that was a pair of 330s used for about 10 races and some training. A couple of us wondered if it was the big studs on the sole of the 330 that were responsible in producing excessive leverage on the outer sole when used on Jura.
MW, you still doing any running these days? I met you once (KWs Culra-based bash) and I remember you saying you always packed your PBs for nipping up Munros when away on the bike. If you are I'd also recommend the Montrail Highlanders as mentioned by a couple of others, certainly found them very robust and the pair I've been using for about a year still going well. Big drawback is all the excess padding on them which soaks up the water and takes a while to dry out.
John MacEwan
