Devil O‘ The Highlands Preview 2026
The annual running of the Devil O’ the Highlands Race takes place this Saturday 25th April.
Brief History
The Devil of the Highlands is a 42-mile race held on the top half of the West Highland Way from Tyndrum to Fort William. It includes 6,500 feet, almost 2,000 metres of climb, and has a 12-hour cut-off time.
The first race took place in 2003 under the stewardship of Gary Milne, supported by his wife Gemma and his Dad Stan. Gary and Stan had both run and been involved with, the full 95-mile West Highland Way race. Gary had long had the idea for “The Devil” and in 2003, the idea became a reality. The event soon became a popular fixture in the Scottish Trail and Mountain calendar, attracting some of Scotland’s and Britain’s top ultra runners, as well as mere mortals just happy to take on the challenge or enjoy a great day in the hills.
In 2015 John Duncan, Highland Fling Race Director, took over the organisation of the race. It seemed to coincide with the general fast-growing interest in trail running. Numbers gradually increased, In the five years to 2019, the number of finishers more than TRIPLED. (2014 – 121 finishers. 2019 – 367 finishers)
Covid years put a halt to that in 2020 and 2021 but 2022 saw a healthy entry. The last three years has seen a steady increase in entrry’s and consequent finishers.
The current race records have stood for several years.
Former Great Britain ultra international Lucy Colquhoun holds the women’s record with 5:47:28. It was set in 2011 when Lucy was one of the leading ultra runners in Great Britain. To put it in perspective, the second fastest women’s time is almost 40 minutes slower at 6:18:49, set by Scottish International, Alison McGill, in 2025.
The men’s course record is held by Rob Sinclair from Aberdeen. His record time of 5:12:21 was set in 2017. Rob was having a “Stella Summer “ that year. The GB international not only completed the mythical “Scottish Trail Triple Crown” of Highland Fling, Full West Highland Way and the Devil of the Highlands in the same summer but set course records in all three races, all of which still stand!
As the race website proclaims,
“John and the rest of the Devil Team strive to continue Garry and Gemma’s success to allow runners to experience the amazing scenery of the route.”
The rest of the devil team includes over 120 volunteers giving up their time over race Weekend to ensure everything goes smoothly.
The 2026 Race
This year there are a record number of entrants overall, and a record number of women too. 2026 has seen the race continue to encourage an ‘active gender entry’ to increase the number of women running A total of 264 women, 449 men and 2 non-binary entrants are on the start lists for this year’s race. This is a record number of women’s entries
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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.
