Update on my foot - today it isn't as sore to walk on (which is good) but when I try to put shoes on or walk with the shoes on the pain is somewhat extremely uncomfortable. I have tried to customise a kind of "toe strap" so my pinky toe is strapped to the one next to it.
Here's my toe when it first happened (left little toe):
And here's my toe this morning. The bruising isn't really that visible in this photo but it's blinking sore I tell you.
So today I think I will forego a run and go to the gym instead. If I can stand ok I will do a fairly intensive session on the cross-trainer then maybe go for a swim...if not, I will go on the bike for a while. Hopefully this will keep my cardio strength up anyway. If it's better tommorrow then I will go a 6-8 miler run. Then I have my big 35 miler run scheduled on Friday.
Now onto the fun stuff...
Last weekend on Sunday Derek, my cycling friend and I all got the train up to Fort William in prep for cycling the WHW on the Monday/Tuesday. It was absolutely peeing down on the Sunday and really wasn't pleasant to cycle to Westerton station in. We got some food in Morrisons then cycled the few miles to our hostel at Achintree farm. That was a really nice wee hostel, I'd very much recommend it. Lovely owner.
It rained all night and when we woke the next morning it wasn't much better. Queue our stupid pre-cycle look:
We headed off about 9am onto the WHW. It was a bit of a slog cycling up that big hill into the forest in the rain, I must say. Between being soaked and cold while pushing and roasting and soaked while cycling, it wasn't particularly good. But going through the moor was quite good and we did manage to cycle a fair bit of it. Queue Derek looking awesome cycling down a hill...
Coming down into Kinlochleven though was horrible. We couldn't cycle as it was way too slippy. In the meantime it continued to rain and we continued to get soaked. When we got into Kinlochleven we were freezing, soaked to the bone and starving. We huddled under a tourist information sign (the bus shelter was full) and shovelled some food down our throats. It was about this time we began to think of calling the cycle off. We looked up train times and decided to get as far as Bridge of Orchy before making up our minds. So we continued on up the hill towards the Devil's staircase.
Now this really was a case of pushing the bike uphill for the whole way. It really wasn't fun.
Though we did get to cycle a bit of it.
Looking a bit pathetic at the top...
...and pushing the bike back down the otherside, which was also too slippy to cycle down.
We finally got to Kingshouse and assessed our plan. Our cycling buddy was keen to push on since the weather had picked up slightly. Derek and I, however, felt it was going to be the same weather tomorrow and we really weren't enjoying it as much as we wanted to be. We had already cycled it, after all and this was meant to be for fun.
So, with a frown in our hearts and some building pain in our backsides, we flew down the A82 towards Bridge of Orchy to get the 18:56 train. I say "flew"...trying to maintain good speeds for that stretch really isn't very easy with all the cars flying past you. We got to B.o.O in time to have some chips then get train home.
All in all the cycle we did ended up ok but I didn't enjoy it at the start. I don't think I'll be cycling the WHW in that direction again. You need to push the bike for most of the time, and when you're doing that you are either getting smacked constantly in the leg by the pedals, or you are completely missing the scenery because you're assessing the ground the whole time. On the plus side though, it did map out the Devil of Highlands route well and I'm glad I covered the ground for it (did the Tyndrum > Kingshouse part while supporting Richard on the WHW race).
Here are some photos from the WHW race, too, which I'll post while I'm here:
Richard and I at top of the Devil's staircase.
and an atmospheric one taken by Derek.
So over the past few weeks my workputs have been as follows:
Monday 5/7
Type: Cycle/Hike with bike
Distance: 25 miles (on WHW) 12.6 miles (A82)
As described above!
Tuesday 6/7
Distance: 4.2 miles
Pace: 8.15 min/mile
A really good run after dinner, mainly because there were a lot of hills and I managed to keep the pace on all of them (all 1-3 minutes of hills!).
Thursday 8/7
Swim. 34 lengths. Pushed quite hard on the final lengths and felt really good afterwards.
....
Now for something non-exercise related!
Derek and I graduated on Friday 9/7 with our MSc in Operational Research from Strathclyde. Was a fantastic day and it reiterated how good the department are - had a nice lunch with our classmates and some professors. Feels really good to have graduated and I preferred this graduation to the one at Glasgow Uni.
Here are some photos to mark the day...which I view while deciding what my next academic endeavour will be!! ...
Me getting my pat on the head...
Me walking out with my classmates, noticing my parents hanging over the balcony with the camera and laughing profusely.
The goofy couple.
And most of my graduating MSc class...what a happy bunch we are (:
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