Glenshee 9

The nine in the title doesn’t refer to kms or miles, if only, but Munros !!, these ones

1. Creag Leacach
2. Glas Maol
3. Cairn of Claise
4. Tom Buidhe
5. Tolmount
6. Carn an Tuirc
7. Carn Aosda
8. Carn a Gheoidh
9. Cairnwell

21 miles and 6000 feet of ascent.They must be completed in order, other than that, you can take any route you like.

I had fancied this one for a while. The really long ones don’t really suit me, but hey you’ve got to tick them of.

Not having done any formal training for a while with the baton commitments, I really was uncertain about how it would go.

I saw that Alan Thornburrow had entered and made the decision to give it a go.

MWIS forecast had improved marginally from earlier in the week, I was worried as there are ample opportunities, to go seriously wrong and get properly lost in the middle of nowhere.

Alan and I headed up with much trepidation, and registered at the Ski Station

Had the usual briefing, and safety warning with a wee aside about lightening in the area.

I was really nervous, I knew if I got round it would probably be between 4.40-5.00 a hell of a long day in the mountains, but my main objective was just to finish it.

Its Probably the toughest on the calendar, reckon only similar would be Arrochar Alps and Jura

Weather was initially very kind with perfect what I like to call goldilocks conditions not to hot not to cold. The first six are on the east side of the A 93, very varied ground, surprisingly bogey in bits A lot of boulderly summits which made it hard going, after number six there is a long descent back to road then the remaining three.

I reached the checkpoint in about 2.50 with a 3.30 cut of.

Over the road and up the near vertical heather clad Carn Aosda.An absolute beast major cramp, in lower left leg and foot, even tried to go backward to relieve it. After what seemed like a prolonged torture session made the summit asked marshall, point in general direction of No 8 it seemed absolutely miles away furthest on the horizon. Then the weather came in, biblical rain all the worse as at that height your in the cloud. I tried to put my jacket on and for the life of me it wouldn’t go on and went into complete rant mode as a three or four runners came past, it would have looked hilarious I’m sure if somebody had managed to film it.

Thankfully the clag cleared slightly to get a view of the last summit, up that and then straight down n the line of the ski lift, to the finish, hallelujah

Well knackered, bumped into Alan at the café unfortunately timed out missed the cut of by about 10 mins, still a hell of an effort.

57^th 4 hrs.55 min 87 finished out of 107 starters