Running 874 miles was the plan. Running into deep trouble miles was the plan. Running into river until an old woman saved me just wasn’t
It was supposed to be the journey to end all journeys.
Gavin Boyter planned to turn a negative into a positive when he was made redundant by the NHS by running from John o’ Groats to Land’s End.
But after taking a wrong turn when he reached Loch Ness, Gavin got lost for seven hours af ter becoming stuck in a bog.
The 46-year-old had been reported missing to police, who were about to launch a helicopter rescue.
He says he will forever be deeply grateful to an 82-year- old woman who drove him back to civilisation after he turned up late at night, soaking and shivering on the doorstep of her remote Highland cottage.
Gavin, from Edinburgh, said: “In hindsight, it should have been obvious that I had taken a wrong turn when Loch Ness disappeared.
“I’m not the kind of person who likes to retrace my footsteps and start again. I like to forge on ahead.
“But I’ve definitely learned a valuable lesson the hard way – the Highlands are not a playground for the dilettante wanderer.”
Gavin, who describes himself as an “ordinary runner”, devised his plan to run from John o’ Groats to Land’s End after losing his admin job in the NHS.
While Guinness World Records say the 874-mile journey has been run in just nine days, Gavin decided to plot a longer, more scenic route than the run alongside motorways that had scooped the world record.
With experience of marathon and endurance running under his belt, he put together a training programme that he was sure would equip him well for the run.
He said: “I had a lot of maps and a compass but I didn’t really know how to use them when I started off. “I’ve also learned that I should have had a satellite phone with me as there is no mobile reception in most rural locations in Britain. “I got lost several times on the run but the worst was right at the beginning when I was trying to run a section of the Great Glen Way from Invermoriston to Fort William. “I’d been given local directions which I accept it’s possible I didn’t listen to clearly enough and took the wrong path. “When the path I was on petered out, I decided to head off-trail over the open country. “There was boggy moorland, rolling hills, rocky paths leading through more moorland, scrubby woodland and forest. Perhaps the lack of signs of human life should have
triggered alarm bells. And every mistaken action seems self-evidently foolish with the clarity of hindsight.”
Gavin had to negotiate forests and mountains dressed in just running shorts and a T-shirt.
On making it safely down the hills, he did all he could to f ind a way towards any road, farm or village. But as nightfall started to creep in, he realised he had to cross a wide river.
He said: “My plan was simple – to slowly wade across the river. As I stepped out, the water level rose to my waist, chest and then neck.
“When I reached the middle of the stream, the current became unexpectedly fast-flowing. I lost my footing and it began to carry me downstream.”
Gavin was deeply relieved to haul himself up on the opposite bank.
Cold and soaking wet, he stumbled on until he came to a tiny village.
He said an elderly woman who lived in one of the cottages initially looked shocked – and a little anxious – to find him on her doorstep.
But after giving him a towel and allowing him to use her phone, she drove him back to a car park near Invermoriston, where his worried father was waiting.
He said: “My dad was my support team and had called the police, who were about to send out a helicopter with heat-seeking equipment to try to find me.
“When I half-jokingly said to one of the officers that I had considered sleeping rough for the night, he looked at me very seriously and said it would have been my death.”
Part-time film-maker Gavin says that while the rest of the run wasn’t filled with the same level of drama, it didn’t all run to plan.
He admits “a few more wrong turns”, an ankle injury and running much slower than he expected added an extra 19 days to what he had planned would be a 28-day trip.
One of his biggest “detours” saw him run an unexpected extra 19 miles in one day. But Gavin says he loved every minute of his epic journey.
And he hopes a book he has written about his trip, Downhill From Here, will inspire other “ordinary people” to plan adventures of their own.
He added: “When I planned the trip, I believed I could run 40 miles a day but I injured myself before starting so, on day one, I had a limp and it went downhill from there.
“I probably ran an average of a marathon a day but I had an amazing time. It taught me several l ife lessons, including what doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger and you can only run where the trail takes you.”