Kate Robertson - It was a privilege to take the Veteran Women's Munro Relay to the halfway point (141/282 munros) last night. Definitely type 2 fun though, the weather in the mountains was far from ideal, slowing the previous leg runners down somewhat. Eventually we started our leg at 1.15am and battled sleet and crazy winds to summit Creag Meagaidh, Stob Poite Coire Ardair, Carn Liath (munros 41, 42 and 43 for me).
Alison and I (after only meeting last night) almost resorted to tethering ourselves together for fear of getting separated or blowing off the mountain 🤪 16.66 (😈) miles and 5,322 feet of ascent later, we handed over to the next pair shortly before 6am 😴
Alison and Kate
Hilary Quick - In the fairly early hours of this morning (04:45, Saturday 18th June), these amazing ladies reached the HALFWAY milestone!!!! 141 Munro summits now jumped on by 1 or 2 crazy ladies of a certain age in just a couple of weeks! Surely conditions can only get better????
Rachel Gallacher - Last night's unpleasant conditions meant that it was difficult to predict a start time for our traverse of the Monadhliath. So reveille was earlier than anticipated 😴, trackers were watched, breakfast was "full", guessing games were played as to what the nature of Kate Robertson's cunning plan with a bike entailed and we eventually reached Garva bridge just before Kate arrived at 6. (Pretty typical of most handovers I think!)
We were lucky to have the wind behind us most of the way and decent visibility which was essential for the vast featureless bog trot that is the ground beyond Geal Carn. Worst bit of wind and blasting rain occurred around second summit Carn Dearg, Carn Sgulain was barely worth mentioning (except there were two cairns a couple of hundred m apart so we visited both) and A'Chailleach had a lovely shelter cairn which I didnt want to leave!
It was lovely to reach handover where Alison Thacker and Kate Robertson were waiting to cheer us in along with Alison's daughter and Louise on the bike. It's nice to have a welcoming committee. 😀
Rachel Gallagher and Cathy Tilbrook on no 1
Looking at Cathy one way at Carn Sgulain
A'Chailleach summit cairn, we felt like old women ...
More wind on no 2
Looking in the other direction at Rachel and all the distance we'd covered (and still to cover)
Looks nice at the bottom! But we've still got our waterproofs on!
Sarah Dunn - After a day spent checking weather forecasts, checking in with runners and completely re-jigging plans once more, it was a huge relief to get out on the hill last night and be there doing the bit we all signed up for.
There have already been so many wonderful aspects to this relay, one of which has been hooking up with so many new like-minded people to make instant friendships. But last night it was just fab to pair up with a best run bud for an evening romp through some not especially exciting terrain from Drumochter across to Glen Tromie.
Plovers were peeping, ptarmigan scuttling & hares bounding over the hillside. But best of all there was lots of good chat and laughs, as well as moments of quiet companionable company. Just the ticket 😍
Katie Henderson
Sarah running on the plateau
Katie Henderson on the plateau
There is no charge for reading this account, but please consider donating to Free to Run, the charity that the ladies are running for.
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