The Big Day

Firstly thunderous applause and huge thanks to everyone who bought cakes, entered the sweepstake, took part in the auction, donated money, supported us on the day or suffered long, tedious tales of blisters and chaffing! We raised well over £2000 thanks to you and from listening first hand to the people who work at and use Maggie’s Centres I can tell you that they are truly grateful.

Secondly an explanation of why we would have been a man down (or a gall bladder up) in the pasta party photo if it weren’t for the wonders of Photoshop. Murray had adopted the guise of Lemony Snicket and was working his way through a series of unfortunate incidents beginning with his gas boiler packing in on the Friday morning and culminating in his car radiator exploding at Glencoe on Friday afternoon. Fortunately, with the help of his pals who were also travelling up the A82, everyone managed to make it to Fort William in the end.




Saturday morning started extremely early with us leaving the B&B at 5:30. I had enjoyed a blissful three hours of sleep but woke up feeling remarkably good, adrenaline or plain stupidity presumably the cause. The cycle went well for everyone with Murray coming in first and going on to finish at Drumnadrochit due to split feet, with the potential to shed the appendix, tonsils and a whole host of other non-vital organs who knows how fast he could be next time. Gavin raced on to finish second overall with slightly sore feet and a desire to never see another energy gel ever, ever again.

Colum and I rolled into Drum in time for dinner at 5pm at which point Colum’s knee, which had been playing up for fifteen miles or so, decided that it would be amusing to swell up like an inner tube and render ambulatory motion virtually impossible. He got to spend an hour with the physio while I carried on to Inverness, mine being by far the less painful half of the deal. By 10:15 it was all over for another year. Big thanks to the event team; it was a great day and a painful but brilliant experience!

Snowbeasts

For the astute amongst you it will no doubt be obvious that these pictures are not from a sunny, hot April and sadly are another indictment of a slightly out of date blog!

Ben Alder seems to be our spiritual home when it comes to Bike & Hike training and this year was no different. An interesting cycle in through the snow brought us to the bothy before we began trudging through the deep drifts with the vague notion of reaching some distant summit. When trudging became swimming a prudent halt was called for a swift photograph before a sensible decent.




Back at the bothy we went for the worst boy band ever look, note Murray and Colum both adopting the 'here are my testicles please kick them' pose!

He's Mr Whiteside

Some time in February Gavin gave me some material to post on the blog. Due to chronic and incurable laziness I didn't get around to it until now! Sorry Gav!

Saturday
I also missed the weekly jaunt on Thursday night; woops it was me that cancelled it after increased pressure from fellow softies!! I managed to get an hours run in the woods, it was a revelation to run again in daylight. So I was surprised when I managed to get lost in my local woods (I am too an idiot!) After numerous encounters with boggy paths, teenage drinking dens and fallen trees I managed to emerge from the woods only 2 miles from my house. However my younger daughter (age 5) was due to be dropped off at home after a party to be looked after by her doting Dad, Dad (that’s me) was still in the woods in a sweaty, muddy and bloody state! The final dash was done in record time and made it back with 30 seconds to spare.





Sunday
I awoke early and thought it would be a good idea to go up Beinn Bhuidhe Mhor on the bike, obviously yesterdays expedition hadn’t quite done it. Unfortunately due to the snow on the northern face I had to change my route and decided to go up Beinn Bhuide Bheag instead. After the exhaustive uphill section the downhill was relished. The downhill was fun but my snowboard would have been better on the hard packed snow. As I got lower down and the snow started to soften the chances of me going over the handlebars increased. Oh yes I was right and after two excursions over the handlebars I started dreaming of breakfast. I managed to make it home in time for breakfast and in one-piece, although a bit sweaty as Zara and Ava confirmed.

The Tempest

Sadly our training run was cancelled for the rather trivial reason of hurricane force winds and torrential ran/hail/snow. However, as I already had my shorts on and had done my stretch I decided that I'd chance a run up Cnoc Croit na Maoile behind Muir of Ord. During this pleasant trip a number of things became apparent to me:

1. Storm force winds and horizontal hail apparently are good reasons not to go for a run

2. Running through a forest in the dark in half a foot of snow and many rustling branches is relatively scary. Especially as I was following the footsteps of what can only have been a leopard (or possibly a weasel)

3. I'm an idiot

The following photos and short instructional video (requires sound for maximum impact) chart the course of the evening.


Before


During


After

Night of the Living Dead

As Murray was in Inverness to tile his sister's bathroom we decided that a good way to spend Saturday evening would be a swift jog up to the mast on Dunain Hill. We both got our excuses in early with Murray's aerobic fitness not quite up to last years standard and my doctor telling me to take it easy on account of a dodgy back. Nevertheless we wheezed and complained our way up to the fine viewpoint and enjoyed an interesting decent; with only a single headtorch for company.
Steph provided us with a fine dinner (one of the few good reasons to go running is to be able to eat more) and kindly took this picture, which shows off to good effect how much of a complete tool I look in my shorts and also features my trusty ice-pack for fixing dodgy backs, hips, knees etc.

Here we go again... again

Right, this time it's serious. We will be biking and hiking for 73 miles in much the same way as previous years but this time with 50% extra effort included. Murray has removed his gall bladder to reduce the amount he has to carry, Colum has new shoes, Gavin is running and cycling (which is probably a sensible approach) and I'm making my way through the remainder of Christmas cake, mince pies, fudge, marzipan fruits, Lindors, biscuits and crisps that were not consumed during the festive period; thus ensuring optimum carb loading by May.

We will endeavour to post pictures of miserable, cold, wet, grey countryside with miserable, cold, wet, grey people standing in it as we venture outdoors in the fantastic Scottish winter. Come back and find out how we're getting on.