broke

or how I managed to miss marion's reading despite re-arranging work.

the signs were there on tuesday when i had a rare night off to get off with the tuesday boys. where is mr p i queried. he was at the boys school sports day, they told me, he was entering the dads' running race. running, i said, is he mad? if he wasn't then he is now, they told me, he's torn both his hamstrings. and then followed a long conversation about the need for stretching in cycling males of a certain age. that one sentence is about as interesting as i can make it.

the following day i got phoned up to see if i wanted to lend a bit of moral support to a three peaks challenge (up and down the three highest hills in the uk in 24hrs). sounds good i said so long as i've time to get on the bike before i go. i texted geo. guess what, I said, i'm going to climb ben nevis. but you hate walking came the reply, you've got dodgy knees, it's been fifteen years since we last did a hill and wasn't it you who whined like a little girl the last time i made you walk to the beach? are you mad?

but it sounded like a lark and was in aid of man cancer so i was not to be dissuaded. off to the ben we went where we found it, despite it being late afternoon, swarming with folk all doing the same as we were. great weather, no wind so off we went, and after a bit of initial foot discomfort i was able to push the pace a bit at the front.

but so many people. and so few of them from scotland. vast swathes of englishness coupled with japanese, chinese, spanish, italians and a rake of germans. it took until nearly the top until i was finally greeted with the glottal stops of my countrymen which was good in itself as one of the behaviors notably manifesting itself was the inability of many of the walkers to respond to a greeting with anything other than an 'are you the loony on the bus' look. there were also a fair number of folk who could reasonably be described as defying their years. they were all great (they all said hello) and every one of us said we'd be aiming to be as active at the same age.

and up the hill. we had one guy who was lagging a bit so i was back and forward a bit pacing him up but we still managed up the hill in just over two hours which was within their planned time and no-one was looking too burst. and then down the hill. only a couple of hundred metres downhill and i started to lag. going up had been fine, big steps, not unlike pedaling. downhill on the other hand uses a completely different set of muscles, muscles i never have any reason to use. i shortcutted down a couple of runners paths but even so everyone else got in well ahead of me – it took longer to descend than it took me to get to the top!

by friday morning i couldn't move. i curled up in a blanket and dozed, any thought of walking (walking!) to the train station far less through the centre of glasgow the last thing either I or my body wanted to do. the only silver lining is that t is in kilkenny so couldn't witness my attempts to get up and down the stairs. and that's before i went to work!

i'm not sad i don't do the hills any more. it was good when i did it but going up the ben, albeit at a busy time, reminded me of why i like the bike better. that said, with a decent team and some proper conditioning into my legs who knows?

*for those interested in that sort of thing we were up and down in 4:20. without the leg issue i reckon i could comfortably get that down to 3:30. the record - 1:25!!!!!