Tour of The Highlands – PART 3

Morning sun streams through the bathroom window,  casting a naked alien like shadow against the wall.  I’m stood in the bath tub and ready to shock my system with some cold exposure therapy i.e. an icy cold shower.

Five minutes earlier I had awoken, stock still and anxious to see how my body had recovered from yesterday’s exertions.  A quick body scan later and the news was good, not great…just good.  It doesn’t feel ma own. Aye, It’s stiff and aching, but it’s a good ache and it feels better, even a little bit stronger. Although that could still be the after effects of last nights Peroni’s right enough! Continue reading “Tour of The Highlands – PART 3” →

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Tour of The Highlands -Part 2

 

PART 2

Stu checks his “Well I’m fucked then, I’m banging oot 187BPM ” he blurts oot with sweat cascading fae his chin. Wish I had kept ma masterplan stoom now!  Anyway it has landed and he’s slowing. I don’t know whether it’s deliberate or psychosomatic.  Not wanting tae upset the climbing rhythm I’ve got going, I start tae slowly edge away fae him.  We turn a corner and the Lawers Dam comes into full view, but just as it does I see a photographer hunkered down beside a big rock, with a long range lens pointing doon the road towards us.  Fuck knows what happens, but a switch in ma head is flicked and I come over all Berty Contador. Springing up out the saddle, shifting up a few gears. In ma mind I’m like a gazelle, prancing across the Savanah. A vision of poetry in motion. In reality, nowhere near it, probably look more like Dan Martin, putting a fire out with his feet, whilst chewing a highland toffee! Never did see that photo. Continue reading “Tour of The Highlands -Part 2” →

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Tour of The Highlands – Part 1

Day 1 Part 1  INTRODUCTION  CLICK HERE

wee burl

It’s 5am on a Saturday at the end of May and we find ourselves in a Wig-Wam in the Trossachs.

My phone is playing a piano arpeggio. It’s cheesy but better than those needle to the eyeball beeps of the default alarm.

I bolt upright, Frankenstein like.

It’s here, day one of the Tour of the Highlands.

My hand pads the bed to find my phone.   I thumb the home button and stop the alarm.
It’s been a shit night’s sleep; tossing and turning all night long in this Wig-Wam/sauna. I am half-baked with excitement, half seared by the heat. I remember being fully compes mentis since four am. At least that is when the cockerel started cocka-doodle-f*****g-doing. Continue reading “Tour of The Highlands – Part 1” →

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