Friday 5 November 2010

strathpuffer is go

this year my strathpuffer entry was in about thirty seconds after the website was opened so come january yet again i'll be out in the winter darkness trying not to break me, my bike or both before the dawn actually comes around.

we'll be doing it in conjunction with slp in some form or another. currently, along with the usual shenanigans we're thinking about some form of moby dick type thing going on (it was a close run thing with ulysses but the whale won!) so if anyone's got any favourite passages from the book they feel are compatible with a 24hr bike race in scotland i'd be glad to hear them.

10 comments:

Totalfeckineejit said...

One of us is on drugs. And I'm pretty sure it isn't me.

swiss said...

no really, it is you...

Totalfeckineejit said...

Doh!

Titus said...

Wow, glad I came back to find out what strathpuffer was! Have I ever.
I'll be back.

swiss said...

the adventure show usually cover it so you'll be able to view the stupidity sometime around february.

so far my record is poor. first one i did i had flu. not my finest hour. second one i did my knee. third one i manged somehow to get my bum to dosintegrate then broke my seatpost in the middle of a lap resulting in the careful balancing act of spike against my chafed buttocks. i lost heart after that...

i can;t say, hand on heart, that it'll be different this year!

Titus said...

Bum disintegrated? You could market that, you know.

Anyway, really came back because having started quoting to myself, realised I don't know what you use the sections of Moby-Dick for. Do you read them to each other late at night as a cool-down, shout them at the start as a motivator, or pray them to yourselves whilst undergoing the race?
It makes a difference to what I choose...

swiss said...

i'm not entirely sure what we're going to do, how we're going to record it or whatever

but it would seem in the format of the race there's a certain parallel, an ahabian singlemindedness, so that the format - preparation, journey, denouement - might be replicable.

and the book is such a nest of quotes. for instance the following could be used at the start (esp if there's a repeat of the ice puffer of two years agao!)

At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It was a sharp, cold Christmas; and as the short northern day merged into night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor.

Titus said...

Gotcha!

kate said...

so glad to hear you've got an entry-that makes two of us :) i'll leave the creative bit to you, actually and the riding ;) but i'll make sure my flask has enough for two. see you there!

swiss said...

hurrah! excellent news!