![\"image\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/wpid-DSC023421.jpg\" "\\"DSC02342.JPG\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nToday I finished the challenge in a few seconds over three hours, pretty much what I predicted as far as time goes – but what a route this is! It begins by heading under the magnificent Culloden Viaduct in the running section, then heads steeply uphill.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The uphill last pretty much for the first six miles! In some parts it’s so steep that there’s no choice but to walk and even when I was running it was sometimes more of a shuffle than a run. The weather was hot and sunny – which gave magnificent views over the Moray Firth if you could drag your eyes off where your feet were landing on the rough tracks.<\/p>\n
From the top, the track continues for a mile or two before hitting grouse moor that must be crossed – and it’s boggy down there. Then there’s rough heather to cross before finally reaching tracks on the Moy Estate.<\/p>\n
By the time I got there my ability to run was limited! I was happy to reach transition and get on the bike. Inspired by the Tour de France, I went for it, using the few hills to gain some ground and pass a good few competitors, crossing the line in just over three hours.<\/p>\n
You can still sponsor me for the event at http:\/\/www.charitygiving.co.uk\/johndavidson<\/a> – you’ll be raising money for Raigmore’s cardiology unit.<\/p>\n The Heartbeat Challenge is a duathlon made up of a 12-mile run over the Monadhliath hills between Clava outside Inverness and Moy, followed by a 10-mile cycle back along the road to Clava. Today I finished the challenge in a few seconds over three hours, pretty much what I predicted as far as time goes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,83,84,50],"class_list":["post-1471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-cycle","tag-duathlon","tag-event","tag-run"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5M0xs-nJ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1585,"url":"https:\/\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/2013\/06\/02\/get-set-for-the-highland-cross\/","url_meta":{"origin":1471,"position":0},"title":"Get set for the Highland Cross","author":"John Davidson","date":"June 2, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019m taking part in the Highland Cross - a 50-mile duathlon (20 miles running off road and up hill followed by 30 miles road cycling) going coast to coast across the Highlands - in a few weeks\u2019 time. 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Took an 'unplanned' turn at one point and found a few excellent quiet roads, so a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "John's blog"","block_context":{"text":"John's blog","link":"https:\/\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/content\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/Clava-Cairns-NCN.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1899,"url":"https:\/\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/2014\/06\/22\/highland-cross-2014-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1471,"position":3},"title":"Highland Cross 2014","author":"John Davidson","date":"June 22, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The legs are slowly recovering after completing my second Highland Cross. I knocked around seven or eight minutes off my time from last year, coming into Beauly 5 hours, 22 minutes and 12 seconds after setting off from Kintail. The coast-to-coast duathlon involves a 20-mile run including a huge climb\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Highland Cross"","block_context":{"text":"Highland Cross","link":"https:\/\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/content\/highlandcross\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8130,"url":"https:\/\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/2022\/06\/05\/ready-for-the-return-of-the-highland-cross-in-2022\/","url_meta":{"origin":1471,"position":4},"title":"Ready for the return of the Highland Cross in 2022","author":"John Davidson","date":"June 5, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Like so many other things, the Highland Cross has been absent from the calendar for the last couple of years, meaning the last time the coast-to-coast challenge took place was 2019. That's three long years with no Cross to look forward to, so it's great that the event will be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Highland Cross"","block_context":{"text":"Highland Cross","link":"https:\/\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/content\/highlandcross\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Highland-Cross-for-WEB-0265.jpg?fit=1000%2C750&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Highland-Cross-for-WEB-0265.jpg?fit=1000%2C750&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Highland-Cross-for-WEB-0265.jpg?fit=1000%2C750&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Highland-Cross-for-WEB-0265.jpg?fit=1000%2C750&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3748,"url":"https:\/\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/2018\/07\/01\/making-it-count-at-the-cross\/","url_meta":{"origin":1471,"position":5},"title":"Making it count at the Cross","author":"John Davidson","date":"July 1, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"There\u2019s a chance that the total raised by the Highland Cross will surpass \u00a35 million when this year\u2019s donations are tallied up. That\u2019s a huge amount of good being done for causes across the north of Scotland from an event that began as an emergency services challenge in 1983 and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Active Outdoors"","block_context":{"text":"Active Outdoors","link":"https:\/\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/content\/active-outdoors\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/HighlandCross2018-8948.jpg?fit=1200%2C1126&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/HighlandCross2018-8948.jpg?fit=1200%2C1126&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/HighlandCross2018-8948.jpg?fit=1200%2C1126&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/HighlandCross2018-8948.jpg?fit=1200%2C1126&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/HighlandCross2018-8948.jpg?fit=1200%2C1126&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1471"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1472,"href":"https:\/\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471\/revisions\/1472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bl6.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a>