It was a very early start on the morning of 4 July as I awoke at first light, around 3.30 am, to make my way to Glenshee, just a short distance away from my overnight stop. I set off on the mountain trek at 04.10.
The early morning mist rolled over the hills making visibility pretty poor but the first two summits were familiar and I made good progress. The herds of deer were out in force in the early hours with the hills swarming with hundreds of stags. I don't know where they hide later in the day but in the early morning the hills were absolutely swarming with wildlife.
05.17 Creag Leacach (987m)
05.54 Las Maol (1068m)
06.30 Cairn of Claise (1064m)
Visibility became very poor on the approach to Carn an Tuirc, down to maybe 30 m, so some accurate compass work to find the summit and the make a very difficult route to Tolmount across very rough ground. Lacking in confidence in my location on the approach to Tolmount but the clouds lifted briefly to allow a glimpse of the summit.
07.00 Carn an Tuirc (1019m)
08.16 Tolmount (958m)
09.10 Cairn Bannoch (1012m)
09.39 Broad Cairn (998m)
The clouds finally lifted at around 10 am and I enjoyed glorious sunshine for the rest of the day with soaring temperatures as the afternoon proceeded.
10.45 Carn an t_sagairt Mor (1047m)
11.29 Carn a'Choire Bhoidheach (1110m)
12.10 Lochnagar (1155m)
Arrived at the most distant point with fabulous views to the north from Lochnagar and the steep cliffs surrounding the summit. The long walk back started with the legs starting to get very heavy as I crossed the rough boggy ground towards Tom Buidhe.
14.30 Tom Buidhe (957m)
I arrived back at Glenshee at 5 pm feeling totally shattered. The long walk back without summits to tick off was very draining. Quick hot soup and lie down for about an hour helped tremendously and I set off again just before 6pm feeling surprising fresh and energetic.
18.15 Carn Aosda (917 m)
19.10 Carn a'Gheoidh (975m)
20.00 The Cairnwell (933m)
Back to the car by 8.15 pm having completed 14 munros in around 16 hrs of walking (and a few jogs). Total distance covered was around 64 km or 40 miles. Back home in Edinburgh by 11 pm.
We were again woken by the bagpipes - this time at 5 am. After a quick sausage stew we were ready to go by 6.30. Not everyone survived the night - one competitor put a tent peg through his foot going to the loo in the night without his shoes on!
Having survived Ian's snoring we were woken by the sound of the piper walking up the glen. After a quick breakfast we set of on what proved to be a long hard journey. In spite of recent training Ian wasn't well prepared for the length of the race or the terrain.
Our navigation was very good and we made good progress over the first two controls. For the third Ian had decided that he didn't like hills and that he loved paths and we chosed a very long route that went a very long way round a hill and added about 7 km to the journey and probably lost us about an hour. Thereafter the going was very tough in bad weather and rougn ground. We kept going though and arrived on a mountain peak above mid camp around 7 pm. After a final rough descent we finally got to camp at around 8 pm. I shall never 
forget to look of admonishment that Ian gave me as we crossed t he line after almost ten very tough hours on the hills.
