The North Coast 500 is a popular 516 mile / 830km route with about 10650m elevation ascent and decent in the Scottish Highlands.
I decided to run this route because I was looking for a roughly week long FKT attempt and the NC500 runs through my home town. I began and ended the lopped course at Inverness Castle
Starting on July 15th at 04:00, I finished on July 21st at 03:04, in a time of 5 days, 23 hours, 4 minutes and 17 seconds. This beat the previous FKT held by William Sichel by 2 days and 20 hours.
My daily totals were Day 1: 160km / 100 miles; Day 2: 147km / 91 miles; Day 3: 134k / 83 miles; Day 4: 140km / 87 miles; Day 5: 114km / 71 miles; Day 6: 153km / 95 miles.
I had one support vehicle which was manned by my only crew member William Johnston. My brother Alasdair Sutherland also joined me for some of the route and ran as a pacer.
Myself and William both slept in our van each night, other than at the end of Day 5 when I slept on a grassy area outside the van to try and get a better sleep. I was only averaging about 2 hours sleep per night and sleep deprivation proved to be my biggest challenge, resulting in a poorer milage on Day 5.
Like the previous FKT record holder I also had to endure very strong headwinds on parts of the course and these winds should be taken into consideration by anybody else planning the route.