My Devil of the Highlands- Yvonne Prager
I signed up for this race after many years of supporting runners, marshalling at checkpoints, being part of a Fling relay team on 3 occasions and many training runs and walks on various parts of the WHW. And because my very good friend and fellow Harrier, Silke Loehndorf announced that she had entered it this year. Silke had done the Devils three times as well as the Highland Fling and Fling relay and the Triple Crown in 2012 – the Fling, the Devils and the full WHW race in the same year. So a wealth of experience at her fingertips. And of course her husband Thomas had won the Devil’s in 2012 when I had the honour of being his support crew. So I guess my taking part in this iconic event was overdue.
My training went well until around a month prior to race day when an old hamstring injury started playing up followed by a head cold, a few falls and a lot of self doubt!! Plus the fact that unfortunately Silke had come to the difficult decision to withdraw from the race due to her own injury troubles.
But with the support of my fellow Harriers in training runs along with messages of encouragement and support, I turned up on the start line, still full of self doubt and with a large dose of imposter syndrome. One of the first people to speak to me in the Green Welly prior to the start was another fellow Harrier, Lee McLaughlin. I had met Lee briefly at the finish of the Dunoon Ultra last October and he admitted that he also had imposter syndrome so I guess we made a good team. However one thing Lee does have in spades is positivity which was just what I needed. He is also, by his own admission, a chatterbox so the early miles flew by. We were greeted by another fellow Harrier, Elaine Medinelli who was marshalling at Bridge of Orchy and again at Kinlocheven.
Lee and I missed each other leaving the Glencoe checkpoint but met up again at the foot of the Staircase and ran together into Kinlochleven where Silke joined me for the final stretch. Lee tagged along with us for another 5 miles or so but he was so much stronger than me and ran on to finish the race in a fantastic time of 11hrs 5mins.
I struggled to even walk fast over the last 8 miles which felt never ending but with a lot of nagging to keep eating and drinking and a stop at Watermelon Hill for photos, we finally made it to the finish in 12hrs 1min (if only we hadn’t stopped for those photos …..).
What a relief to see the finish line and to be welcomed home by my long suffering hubby Dave, Lee who had waited to see me finish, Thomas and our good friend Morven from Dunoon whose daughter Bethany had also taken part. A very welcome shower in the leisure centre followed by a recovery massage from another Harrier, Lesley McKerral who also had withdrawn due to injury, it was really was a Harrier team effort, thank you to everyone single one of you who helped me get to the finish line.
I really did mean it when I said never again, back to marshalling next year. And I now have even more respect for the crazy runners who undertake the full WHW race.
