A Winter West Highland Way FKT.
On Friday 17th to Saturday 18th January 2025, Angus Irvine, (Gus,) set a new unsupported winter Fastest Known Time (FKT) for Scotland’s classic 95-mile West Highland Way trail. Running South to North, the 43 year old member of Motherwell AC, set off from Milngavie and reached Fort William at the northern end of the trail in 18 hours, 9 minutes and 5 seconds.
While thousands of people complete the popular trail each year, this is usually undertaken, in stages, over a few days, with overnight stops factored in. The most popular time of year is April to September, with growing maximum daylight hours.
A winter expedition on any route is traditionally classified as taking place between 1st December and 28th February. In Scotland, that means barely 8 hours of daylight and can involve full winter conditions. Prior to Gus’s run, there had been other winter attempts, some thwarted or hampered by the winter weather.
Tim Downie and Dave McClelland seem to have the first recorded Winter run in 2006. Running close to the shortest day of the year, they recorded 27 hours 52 minutes, running North to South. Other notable previous winter expeditions on The Way, had been undertaken by summer race winners, and previous course record holders, Jezz Bragg and Paul Giblin. Neil MacNicol raised the bar in 2016 when he ran, unsupported, North to South, in 20 hours, 33 minutes and 12 seconds.
Pitlochry’s Andy Campbell ran sub 20, in 2024, with 19:54:25, in a supported effort with a small crew.
The first recorded female winter attempt was by Caroline Mckay, also running North to South. She ran “just over 24 hours” in December 2016 in a supported attempt.
More recently, Keri Wallace from Glencoe, in very cold conditions, ran the first female unsupported winter West Highland Way. Running South to North, she recorded 28 hours and 19 Minutes.
There are various categories of FKTs, male or female, supported or unsupported, summer or winter.
Then there is the actual race, held on the weekend closest to midsummer
Who is Gus Irvine
I caught up with Gus to chat about his little winter expedition, other things West Highland Way and what the future might hold.
AS. Who exactly is Gus Irvine? Where are you from originally?
Gus. I’m from Northern Ireland, just outside Belfast. Newtownards is the town.
I moved over in 2002 for work. I’ve just been a normal working guy since. The story sounds familiar. It’s the usual life story. You stop training, and you stop doing your sports. I was into football and rugby in my younger days and stopped doing all that training when family and work took over. The weight goes on, and then you look to running to try and take the weight off, and things go from there. It was probably around 2016 or 2017 that I started back into running.
AS. So you did the usual things at school, such as football and rugby. Did you do any running at school?
Gus. No, I didn’t. At Primary school, I did a bit of cross country, but not much
Led astray into ultra running.
AS. When you got into running, how do you get led astray into ultras?
The first one I can find you running was the Tweed Valley Ultra in 2017, but correct me if I am wrong.
Gus.Yes. That’s accurate. That was my first year. I think Donnie Campbell had a part in that. I was actually in the Marines with Donnie many years ago.
I had seen that he was doing ultra running and very successful and making a bit of a name for himself out of it. Thatseemed inspiring at the time.
I was getting back into running. I was maybe training for a marathon. I think I maybe did the Edinburgh Marathon in 2017. But I think it was maybe around that time that I saw he was running the West Highland Way, and I identified with that at the time.
Even though I had never run an ultra, I felt I wanted to do that race. Then you obviously work back.
You have a few hoops to jump through to get you into the West Highland Way race. So, my timeline to get a qualifying race was the Highland Fling.
I did the Tweed Valley event from Glentress as my first footstep into the world of ultra trail running.
Those two events made me eligible to qualify for the “Big Brother race,” the full West Highland Way.
So that got me into the 2019 West Highland Way and on the start line.
AS. The stats show you ran 20 hours 54 minutes in the 2019 race.
Gus. That sounds about right. But, you know, I made so many silly mistakes. I’m with Pyllon coaching now. I have been for four or five years and have John Conolly as my coach. But, I was self-coached back then and trying to work everything out myself.
In 2019 I remember I ran the Fling again in April, and training went well. I can’t remember what my time was, but I thought I was getting fit here.
I maybe took four days off after the Fling, and then I started training again towards the full WHWay in June, with no real recovery, and it was just really stupid. Then I injured myself, so between the Fling in April and the 2019 West Highland Way race, I got one long training run in, and it was just terrible, terrible prep.
AS. Well, I think you are following a strong tradition, should we say?
Gus. Yeah. So, I’m mixing it all up.
Does having a coach make a difference?
AS. What difference has having a coach made to you? Has it helped join the dots a little?
Gus. Yes. I now think of training for ultra races as a big slice of pizza. There are maybe nine or ten slices of the pizza, and the actual training is only one slice of the pizza. So the coach tells me, John tells me what my training is for that week, and that’s only one slice of the pizza. So there are all the other elements like recovery and food, nutrition, and hydration. All those other bits like mobility and strength.
If you don’t have a coach, you can’t ask anybody about all of that.
You can go on to the internet, and you can ask people about it, but you don’t know what’s credible information and what’snot.
So having a coach to soundboard off all those other areas of the pizza is really helpful as well.
When I linked up with Pyllon, and got John as my coach, I thought, that’s it. I’ve got a coach now. I’ll just do what John says, and I’ll get all these massive improvements.
I thought doing what you’re told with the training side of things would be enough. But it’s not enough. There’s all the other elements that you need to slowly pick up and learn and change.
My diet wasn’t great. I wasn’t changing my diet. I just assumed I could follow the schedules and run on a bad diet, but there is more to it than that.
AS. As you’ve evolved as an ultra runner, one of the first questions a coach will probably ask you is, ” What’s your best distance and what is your best surface?” You seem to have gradually gravitated to longer distances as your strength, so going longer rather than playing around with 50 miles and 100k?
GUS. I don’t know. I used to think that 24-hour racing would have suited me because I’m not a racing snake. I’m not a 2-hour 20-minute marathoner. I used to think the longer, slower, stuff would work, and I’ve toed the line at three 24-hour races. At Belfast in 2021, Albi in 2022 and then Battersea in 2023. Although they went ok, nothing really clicked for me at all three of them. Albi went fine, and I won it with 239 kilometres, but I had to walk for the last three hours as I had really bad shin splints. I haven’t had a 24-hour race yet, where things went pretty well.
So I sort of parked the 24-hour stuff for the meantime and I thought well I’ll just go back to doing one 100-mile-ish trail per year and then with the associated 50s milers around that in a build-up. I used to quite like my year doing a 100k at the end of March and then a long race in June or July, with another one in autumn time.
As much as I enjoy the 100k’s, and particularly the Perth one when I ran in the Northern Ireland team at the Anglo Celtic Plate, it’s probably not conducive to giving your best at a trail race come June or July. So I wanted to fully focus this year on just all trials and see where it takes me.
The Challenge versus the Race
AS. You’ve done the West Highland Way race and you’ve done the West Highland Way Challenge event.
Gus. Yes, I have.
AS. Can you compare the two?
Gus. The proper race is a more professional set-up.
When I ran the Challenge, I was getting to some of the aid stations that weren’t ready for us, and there was nothing set up. It all worked out fine but the challenge event is just more laid back, and it doesn’t have that race vibe about it. It doesn’tfeel as much like a race as the bigger one.
I prefer the South to North aspect of the race. The only real difference was that by running North to South in the challenge, you’re going up over Conic Hill at night, with all the sheep looking at you in the eyes.
Jim (Jim Drummond, the challenge organiser) is so dedicated to his event though. He keeps it very simple, which I guessis his whole point with the challenge, compared to the Race.
The Winter West Highland Way,Unsupported.
AS. Anyway, what inspired you to take on a Winter Highland Way?
GUS. I think it was John, my coach, who suggested it to me. I remember on the back of Lakeland 100 last year having a conversation with John and saying, right, these guys that are ahead of me, you know, the Mark Darbyshire’s of this world and Kim Collison’s.
NOTE Gus finished 4th at Lakeland 100 in 2024, with quite a podium of Mark Darbyshire, Gavin Dale and Kim Collison ahead of him
Gus. They all seem to be doing multiple 100-mile races a year. I’m looking at it, and I’m thinking, right, it looks on paper to be too much, but yet they’re still ahead of me on the podium. So are they doing something right, and I am doing something wrong?
I basically had that chat about, “Is one 100 miler a year enough for the body, or should you be doing two?” That was my feedback to John after the race.
We didn’t say anything further at the time, but that’s sort of where my thoughts and my feedback were leaning.
When I was planning my year for 2024, I did the Ardgarten trail race in January to kick the year off.
Note. The Ardgarten race is a 21-mile route on the Ardgarten peninsula in Argyll.
That was a fantastic race. Really quick leg turnover. Three hours of really enjoyable trail racing. I was going to maybe do that again to kick start this year because it was such a good start of the year race.
Then John says, “Well, you did that last year. You won it. What about doing a winter West Highland Way? “
It’s one of those ideas that as soon as you go away and think about it, it doesn’t scare you. It’s more like one of those ideas that excite you, and you start looking at it, and what you need to do, and all the rest of it. As soon as he mentioned it I knew I wanted to do it.
So, I stuck a couple of dates in the diary just in case the weather was absolutely atrocious because it is so heavily dependent on the weather. I identified the date, and the weather gods were very kind to me.
AS. When you were talking to John, did you talk to him or anyone else about the pluses and minuses of doing the trail in winter?
GUS. No. John had found Neil MacNicol’s race report from 2016, and he had sent me that. In fairness to Neil, that was a really good report and gave me a lot of information on it, particularly using a tracker and the tracker company that he used, as I then used them as well.
Paul Giblin had also attempted it. I think Paul had really cold weather. He talked about his eyelids freezing and stuff. Sothere was plenty of information there that was definitely helpful. Andrew Campbell had completed a supported run at the start of last year as well, and his report was very useful. So there was lots of information to tap into.
AS. So you had a tracker, but was anyone subtly following you by car up the trail ready to come to your rescue should there be any mishaps?
GUS. No. I had John (Connolly) in bed in Dumbarton and my wife up in Fort William. The tracker had the button to lock into emergency contacts if needed, So it was John and my wife on call from either end of the trail, but there was nobodyout and about with me. It was just me.
AS. Getting down to the logistics, why did you choose the 8 PM slot to start? You started at 8 o’clock in the evening. What was your thinking behind that?
GUS The thought was that if I have an average day in the hills or there are issues, maybe 20 hours might be my time. I didn’t want to go into a second night of darkness, so I worked back from there. It’s starting to get dark at four o’clock. Working back 20 hours from there, and it was eight o’clock. Okay?
AS. Simple as that.
Gus.Yes.
AS. In terms of carrying everything, it’s a self-sufficient, self-supported effort. It’s impossible to carry absolutely everything. You’re playing percentages in some way. You can’t carry everything you’re going to need to eat and drink unless you’re carrying a huge 10-litre of water on your back.
How did you plan to get around getting fluid on the run?
GUS. Well, I’m quite a high-carb runner. This was my biggest mistake. I trained carrying the usual safety gear and then just with whatever my usual long-run nutrition was going to be. My long run was never over five hours. So when it then came to race week, and I packed my kit two days before and put all my nutrition in, it took my bag to 8.3 or 8.4 kilograms. I lifted it and I thought, “Oh my goodness, what have I done? I’ve made a mistake here, I haven’t trained with this”. A lot of the extra weight was all the gels, it was precision hydration gels with the caffeine on top of that. Add in four 500ml water bottles filled up and I knew two days before I thought I was in trouble.
AS. Just to be clear, when people say they’re doing it self-supported. That is totally self-supported. You’re not stopping at the Real Food Cafe or the Green Welly in Tyndrum for a meal or even to buy extra water or a sneaky pack of Harribo! You load up the pack with all you feel you need, and that’s it.
You are allowed to refill water at itinerant taps you find along the way, or you can fill them up from the burns.
GUS. Exactly, The rules are you can’t even go into a shop. All I did was get water at the taps. That’s all I’m allowed to do. So that’s all I did do. There is a challenge with that as well because some of the taps that I thought were going to be switched on, weren’t. The Scottish Water tap at Balmaha wasn’t on. The tap at Kinlochleven wasn’t on, so that was a wee bit extra challenging. A bit of extra faffle time, but the weight was the biggest thing. Twenty minutes into the run, when I set off, I could feel my shoulders were in discomfort, and I knew this was going to be a long day. As time went on, I would eat the gels, and the bag would get lighter, but it wasn’t very comfortable.
The New Motorway on Conic Hill!
As. Most people when they think of doing the West Highland Way, if they’re doing the race, or they’re doing it in training, get up the back of Conic Hill, and have this wonderful vision of seeing Loch Lomond in all its glory. Fabulous vistas, where you can see for miles. When you got to the top of Conic Hill, it would have been pitch dark in the middle of the night.
Just paint a picture of what it’s like doing it in pitch dark in the middle of winter, and it’s possibly blowing a hoolie compared with a fine summer’s morning.
GUS. That’s the first time I’ve been on Conic Hill since they put the new motorway in. John had said that a lot of the guys had talked about the path and had some concerns about it. I was slow coming down the hill because of my pack and the fact the path was newly laid. I was really careful with my footing even though it was dry and it wasn’t wet, I was just really ultra-cautious about that.
But you’re right. I couldn’t see anything, but the head torch was on, so wherever you look, it doesn’t feel like the dark. Iwas pretty cautious going down Conic in the dark. I was pretty slow. I’ve mentioned to John, my coach, on my feedback that I need to get up and down there a few times before the race because if I run down the hill like that on race day in June, I’ll be getting overtaken.
AS. Travelling through the night like that, did you meet any human beings at all?
GUS. Well. There was nobody out walking or running. There were a couple of campers along the loch side, but nothing until daylight. Just some wildlife.
AS. Oooh. What sort of wildlife?
Gus. So, I had sheep. I had deer, a couple of goats, and many things in the bushes, which were making noises, but I couldn’t see them. I could just see eyes. When I got up to the King’s House Hotel at Glencoe and found a tap there, I had the two deer come over to me to try and get in about my gels. I tried to shoo them off, with no joy. I had to go to the other side of one of the big rocks, just to create a bit of a gap between myself and the deer.
AS. So when you’re on the trail in the dark, and you catch an animal in the headlights, as it were, are they startled? Dothey just head off? Or do they stop and think, “Who is this coming along at this time in the night?”
GUS No, they were fine. None of them ran off. They just stood and looked at me.
AS. Going back to the tracker. Did you send any little text messages? I remember, I think Neil, in his article, said when he got to certain points he used to send Fraser, his emergency backup, a text to say. “Yes I’ve got through here, I’ve got through there.” or were you just relying on the tracker to relay your position?
GUS.No. I was just relying on the tracker. I didn’t announce I was doing the race, as I didn’t want a big social media fanfare thing. That’s not really me. Guys from home had been sending me messages, you know, update messages and saying that they’re watching it on the tracker and that sort of thing. I actually thought I would send messages. We hadn’treally discussed it with John or my wife, but I thought when it came to daylight when they would be getting up the next day, they would send some sort of message to acknowledge and say, “You’re doing well.” or something along those lines.But they didn’t.
Then, as your tiredness kicks in, maybe four or five hours from the finish, you start going to dark places and thinking,”Why haven’t they sent me a message? You start thinking maybe they had a car accident on the way up to Fort William or something. Why is John not texting? They were both seeing me off at Mulgavie. I thought maybe they’ve crashed into each other, and that’s why neither of them is messaging me, so your head goes to some crazy dark places sometimes when you’re tired.
So I’m thinking it probably got light somewhere around Bridge of Orchy. Yeah, probably just after that. Around the Inveroran Hotel, just as you come off Jelly Baby Hill, it was getting daylight.
AS. Wow. Was it a sunrise, or was it cloudy?
GUS.It was a bit cloudy, but then thought about this because I was running north. I wasn’t facing the right way anyway, so I didn’t see anything. My wife said, “Why did you not take photographs?” I said, “Well, there was nothing really memorable photograph-wise, and I didn’t want to faff about too much anyway.”
AS. So, you’re in daylight now, which is obviously better. You get over the last stretch of the Devil and the Lharig Mor and along that little roller coaster from Lundavra. Then, you’ve got that last little pesky little climb out of what used to be a forest that’s now all been cut down. That last little climb up to the fire road, which isn’t really a climb if you did it in when you are fresh, but when you do it at 85 miles plus, it’s a real mini-mountain. Then, you reach the fire road and you just know this is it. You can now just sail down the fire road to Braveheart Car Park and into Fort William.
Did you have that same feeling you get in the race, if you have paced it well, where you just sort of “welly it” down to Fort William from there on or not?
GUS That bit you talk about from Llandavra to the Fire Road, I don’t remember it being as much up and down as that before. That was a real struggle. It was up and down, up and down to the point that I was walking the ups, and I thought,”This is terrible. This is going on forever.” I didn’t remember there being that many ups and downs when I ran the racebefore. It was nice to get that out of the way. Then I got to the fire road, and my watch set up didn’t have distance on it. Ijust had the route, heart rate, and time, and I can’t remember what the other one was, but it definitely didn’t have distance on it.
I wasn’t sure what the distance was to the finish once I hit the fire road.
I had it in my head from listening to Jarlath last year at the end of his race when he said it was 5 kilometres all the waydownhill, but obviously, it wasn’t. It was five miles. So, I thought I was opening my legs and stretching it in, but then when you look at your stretch after, it’s like, “Oh, for goodness sake, this is taking ages!”
AS.Coming into Fort William, what’s the feeling compared with the race? You’ve done the race, and you get that unmistakable feeling of the finish being close and then arriving under the arch. What was it like coming into Fort William, and there was just your family there to meet you?
GUS. It was really nice. It was just after 2 o’clock in the afternoon, but the pedestrian main street was quiet and dead. There weren’t many people around, which was strange for a Saturday afternoon. Seeing the wife and kids at the end was quite emotional, but it was just really nice to finish and just be done and have them there. It was a nice finish.
AS. You’ve taken a little downtime to recover. How has the recovery been compared to the race? Are they similar or anything different?
GUS. I’ve had a little shin splint issue, so recovery has been a wee bit slower than normal. I think I’ll be okay. I ended up blistering the bottom of both feet quite badly, which I don’t really understand because diary much better.
AS. What do you think you could do in the summer?
GUS. I don’t know. When I look at the times for last year, they were quick, weren’t they? I know records weren’t brokenlast year, but Jarlath and Robbie** ran very quick times. I don’t think either of them are in it this year,
**Jarlath McKenna and Robbie Dunlop, who were 1st and 2nd last year
So I really don’t know. There’s always going to be somebody else out there who is going to stay fit and turn up and aim high. I’d love to be competitive and target podiums and all that sort of thing, but it’s frustrating that although 18 hours in winter sounds good, it’s still probably at least three hours off a competitive summertime run. Three hours is a long time. So when you work out the paces and the various technical bits, three hours is still a long time to make up.
AS. (Laughing) If you don’t have an 8 kg backpack all the way, that’s got to be worth at least an hour.
GUS. I’m really keen to get back out on the ground with a lighter, race-weight pack and give myself a bit of confidence again that I can run quicker.
Looking further Ahead
AS.Looking even further ahead beyond June. You’ve run well in the UK, taking on some of the biggest races like the Highland Way and the Lakeland 100. Does going abroad and runningany of the big hundreds appeal to you? Either in Europe or the States?
GUS. I’ve never applied to Western States, which is a nice pipe dream, and I’ve never put my name in the ballot. I was going to do it for 2025, but then I knew I got my entry to the West Highland Way, and I thought, if I got in, it would be too soon. I went to Wales and ran the 50K Ultra Tour Snowdonia last year, and then I did Lakeland. Although it’s the UK, it still seems you’re like an outsider because you’re away from your Scottish races. I am focussing this year on Scottish races, just being back supporting local Scottish events.
AS. I am sure, the Scottish racers will be very happy to have you.
You’ve done 24-hour races, you’ve done 100 miles, you’re used to being on your feet for 24 hours at least. Does a backyard ultra appeal to you?
GUS.No! I don’t really like the thought of stopping and starting. I like runnable races, you know. That’s why I’m excited about West Highland Way again. In the Lakeland 100 last year, the nature of the course means you’re doing a lot of hiking and not as much running as I would like, so the thought of West Highland Way which is a pretty runnable, trail with lots of running and opportunities to properly open the legs is far more exciting to me. The thought of stop, and start doesn’tappeal to me at the moment. Maybe when I’m older, but it doesn’t appeal anytime soon. I think you need a certain sort of mindset to know what you want from your running.
AS. I’m always very motivated by how people get through these races. You mentioned that sometimes during your Winter run, you had to have a good little chat with yourself. When things get difficult, how does Gus keep himself motivated? How does he dig inside himself to find his why, or what is your why anyway?
GUS. I mean, that run did get difficult. It was difficult at the start with the weight on my back and the pack. I knew from training in the Marines, you know, 20, 22, 23 years before, that there were lots of moments in the Marines where you were carrying much heavier weight and your shoulders were much more sore and all the rest of it. So you know it’s just uncomfortable and you’re just going to have to bear it and get through it. It’s just going to be there. But it was the blisters that were really sore with every step on the winter run.
Pretty much from just after Tyndrum the pain was pretty bad. I knew I’d got over 40 miles of suffering for this. I thought, well, it’s going to be sore if I’m walking anyway, so I might as well just keep running and try and run as much as I can. Atleast then I’ll get it over with quicker. I was just trying to stay concentrated, particularly in the dark hours,
You’re navigating. You’re trying not to trip yourself up. Generally, I’ve got something to eat or drink every 15 minutes, so I’m thinking, “Right, what’s next?” I’m just trying to stay on top of my body, and try and sit on top of my logistics so that I don’t miss anything and I don’t end up playing catch up or being behind. You’re mindful of where your water stops are to be topping up water the next time. So just trying to be organised. But in the really tough bits, which were the second half when the feet were bad, it was just a case of toughing it out.
I was swearing to myself, and obviously, there was nobody else on the trail, but I was talking out loud, and the self-talk did involve a few swear words, but it was just, “Get through it.”
I don’t think I ever think of what my “Why is.” I set a target that I wanted to finish and try and beat the FKT, and ultimately, that’s “my why.”
But you don’t actually think about that stuff when your brain and your mind are fresh. When you’re in the depths of tiredness, I never really go back to those moments of thinking about my why. I’ve already locked it in at the start, and it’sjust a case of getting to that outcome at the end. I think there’s a difference between thinking when your brain is fresh, like now versus when you’re in the depths. You can think of two completely different things.
AS. Apart from the backpack issue, which is obviously a schoolboy error from your point of view, if someone is reading this and thinking, I’d like to have a crack at this. What’s the best bit of advice you’d give them? They may be going for the record, they may just be wanting to have a nice little winter adventure. It could apply to any level of athlete.
GUS. I would probably, try and research what water taps are open. If that’s not possible beforehand as, obviously I didn’tdo it, it would be to get good weather because I think it makes a massive difference. I was really lucky with the weather. Ithink if I had the weather from 10 days before my attempt, which was below minus 10, I probably wouldn’t have done it, to be honest, in that cold spell. That was a bit too extreme, I think it’s best to do it safely and to be able to run, so the weather window is important.
AS.So you would recommend having a fallback day as well, or for you, was it all or nothing on that weekend?
GUS. I’d set another date in February that was two or three weeks after as a fallback option, in case the weather was totally rubbish/.
AS. That’s good to know. It’s important to have those options.
Gus, Thanks ever so much for your time. I hope your recovery is swift and look forward to seeing you at Milngavie in June at the start of this year Highland Way.
Further reading on West highland Way FKT’s and Records
You can read Neil MacNicol’s report of his unsupported winter West Highland way HERE
You can read Andy Campbell’s account of his supported winter West Highland Way FKT HERE
An account of Keri Wallace’s female unsuppported Winter West Highland Way FKT is HERE
An article on the first known winter run by Dave Mclelland and Tim Downie in 2006 is HERE
A short history of the West Highland Way race and its fastest times can be found HERE
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Adrian Tarit Stott.
The author is a former GB 24-hour ultra international with over 100 ultra race completions. He has also been involved in organising ultra-distance races for over 30 years. Still an active recreational runner, he is currently a member of UKA’s Ultra Running Advisory Group (URAG) and the Mountain and Trail Advisory Group. He also contributes as part of the selection and team management for both Scottish and GB ultra teams. A freelance writer in his spare time, he contributes articles and reports to several websites and magazines including Athletics Weekly and Irunfar.
