Fort Augustus -> Invermoriston (8 miles)

As soon as the hiking boots went on, the pain came back. A couple of steps and I could feel the wee twinges. The boots had been pretty comfy during the training (and were well worn in) but it was clear I wasnt going anywhere with them. The alternative? The extremely well worn and falling to bits pair of nike cortez that I had cycled in. Pain in hiking boots vs No pain in trainers? No contest.

I spied a few big blisters as I got changed so went to see the first aid team armed with my compeed. As Jake said in his blog, the safety briefing advised us not to put it on unless you knew what you were doing. To the two first aiders who helped. Thanks. No-one should have to go near my feet voluntarily.

Mo and Tommo had assigned us bin bags to keep the dirty clothes separate from the clean kit (how organised I know!) and they made sure we got some scran and had our rucksacks all sorted. If we said it once, its worth saying again, they were stars. Your brain was too busy saying 'walk, walk, walk' that it wasnt really thinking about much else, nevermind sunglasses (I really didnt think I would need a pair up there).



I got paranoid about getting sunburnt/sunstroke (scarred for life after T in the Park in 1995 - one minute bouncing around to the prodigy's voodoo people, the next minute shivering to almighty in the back of a volvo 440!). That is why I have a pair of barcelona shorts round my neck. Thank you to the 93 people who pointed out to me that they had fell off onto the floor.

Everybody who followed our build up to event said roughly the same thing 'youse will be fine, you have done plenty of training'. True. But two observations.

1. We never cycled up 'proper' hills.
2. We never really 'hiked'

I would tell people it was a 30 mile cycle, 43 mile WALK. I thought the word hike was interchangeable. WRONG. A few minutes into the Bronze stage and I discovered that we were going to be HIKING not WALKING. I knew it was never going to be a walk in the park but it was going to be a bit tougher than first thought.

If you havent read Stuart's post (scroll down a bit) then have a look, as he explains this stage perfectly. We didnt want to get split up and go on, but when Stuart tells me something, I listen. My dad always treated Stuart like a son and I guess I treat him like a big brother. When Stuart decided that we were going on without him, it was the only part of the day that I shed a tear (although there were a few welling up moments). I gave him my dad's St Christopher that I had pinned to my back and told him I would get it from him later.

All the Monster virgins probably thought they were getting near to Bronze about 1 hour before they actually did. You heard the music in the distance and thought, yes, we are here. Only for you to keep walking, and walking and walking some more before you actually arrived. The one memorable thing from the Bronze stage was the alphabet music game. We walked in a line and the person on the left had to name an artist or band beginning with A, the next person in line B, then C and so on. Each walker got three lives and if they couldnt guess on a particular letter, they lost a life. I was chuffed to get the Zutons and Suzi Quattro out of the way. It whiled away a bit of time until we came to another hill. Everyone went silent. 'I take it we've stopped playing' I said. 'AYE' came the reply in stereo.