A Tribute to Charlie Ramsay, of Carnethy Hill Running Club, and his priceless legacy The Charlie Ramsay Round.
By Adrian Stott
The Scottish running community was saddened to hear of the recent passing of Charlie Ramsay at the age of 81.
Charlie, as well as being a competent mountain runner, was best known for creating the Ramsay Round. “The Ramsay,” as it is also often called, is a circuit of the Mountains of the Lochaber region. It comprises 24 summits and an approximate distance of 56 miles/90.123 km and 28,500 feet/8686.8 metres of climbing. The challenge is to complete it in under 24 hours.
On the 9 July 1978, Charlie completed the circuit in 23 hours 58 minutes. His final descent of Britain’s highest mountain, Ben Nevis, has become legendary.
Ben Nevis is the final summit of the round run in an anti-clockwise direction. You then have to descend almost 1400m in three and a half miles to reach the original starting point, The Glen Nevis Youth Hostel, at the foot of the mountain.
With less than two minutes to spare, one can debate whether Charlie was cutting it fine or it was perfect timing!
By nature, Charlie was a private, humble person. The Ramsay Round website does not tell you an awful lot about Charlie. It almost plays down his role while making The Round itself the main story.
That’s in keeping with the traditions of Scottish hill running. There are never any big public pronouncements about records or analysis of times.
Indeed, publicity is almost shunned with many choosing to tackle the challenge under the radar with little fanfare.
Charlie epitomised this. He was there to offer help and support to the early pioneer completers of the Round and, in recent years, with the growing popularity of people heading to the outdoors to seek challenges, he was also there offering support, and would often pop up unexpectedly if you had previously told him about your attempt.
There is a list on the website of the 273 completions of The Round in under 24 hours to date.
If you were successful in your attempt, you would write to Charlie with brief details, and he would add your name to the list, all treated as equals.
One Ramsay Round runner has described it thus: ‘There is a strange dedication and obsession, just to have your name listed on a pretty niche website that only crazy hill runners look at anyway!’
For that dedication and obsession, many owe thanks to Charlie for being…
CLICK HERE to Read the Full Original Article at Scottish Athletics…