Wednesday 19 March 2008

14 hour day!!

yes, that's right 14 hour day!! While you we're all probably tucked up all warm and cosy in bed in the wee small hours of saturday morning, two of us were rubbing our sleepy eyes at 5am, donning our walking gear and heading off up the A9.

The weekend weather promised to be cracking and so a plan was hatched. We'd head up the A9 and down into Glen Spean, heading for three munros just south of Loch Laggan. This was to be a good outing, push the limits a bit further what with winter being nearly over (aye, right).














The conditions were certainly more winter than expected, snow being between calf and knee deep and having to break trail in that sure takes it out of you!! On making it to the first munro, doubts were beginning to show, was the day going to be too much? could we make it back before dark? had we bitten off more than we could chew?

No, of course not. We can do this, the weather's almost perfect and we can see the other hills surely it's not as far as it looks. So we soldiered on, tramping through the soft deep powder, stopping only to re-fuel before battling on up the second munro of the day. Too windy to stop at the summit and time is marching on. Off to the third, no stopping us now, we can do this!!!!!!

Some Views.......









As it happens we did make the round of all three munros, all 26kms, with 1500m of ascent in 10 hours.

We made it back to the car just before sunset, tired and happy!

We also got new walking poles for the event so this was the first chance to try them out, and they certainly got a good test run.

So all plans were off for Sunday, (being too sore to even make an ascent on the stairs never mind another hill) and now I know why it's supposed to be a day of rest!!

That's all for now, Lorna x

Lunar Action

Last weekend the team split for training, with two heading to Arran, two heading to Dalwhinnie(more on that later) and one still awol.

A message came in from Arran reporting a Lunar eclipse!!


Full Moon!


Half Moon!



Total Eclipse!!!!!!!!!

Thursday 6 March 2008

On the way back
Lorna
Ardrossan harbour from our friend Duffy and Suzi's place. Not sailing today then!

The Wee Stu Bulletin

Well that was hard going! Me and Ricky's first "proper" walk prob about 17 miles or so, although it had grown to 20 miles by the time we got to the pub!
Good fun although it is hitting home how far 43 miles is going to be. Was quite hilly though which ,apparently, is not really an issue with Maggies but we are still going to have to keep the training up.

As you may have deduced we never made it to Arran cos of the high winds so it was a good chance to do a walk with the team. Planning to go to Arran on Friday 14th and do so more walking and get the bikes out soon.

Rugby this weekend which should be good oh and I can recomend ths walking malarky it makes the first pint you have after it aaaaaammazing!
More pics and comments to follow please keep pledging!
WeeStu

Tuesday 4 March 2008

Finally the team trains!!

No turning back now, confirmation of registration has been received, training t-shirts have been supplied and the training plan OMG!!!!

Much training is required and so a plan was hatched for saturday, a nice fairly easy walk around Glen Finglas, only 4 of the 5 team members could make it and little did we know what the weather gods had in store for us.

We endured storms and gale force winds, at times there were blizzards and driving rain, but together we marched on nothing could stop us!!!!!!

........................................................................................................................

In between weather fronts the day was good and definitely raised the bar for training. And in keeping with the team name it ended in the Lade Inn.

Beer, beer and more beer!!!

A more detailed trip report, with more photos can be read here
On sunday Stuart and I went for a cycle along the canal, 22 miles in 3 hours, hopefully we can improve that to 30miles in 3 hours!
Lorna x