This winter, I totally lost my fitness. I don’t mean, I got a bit out of shape. I mean, I did nothing that would remotely count as exercise for three months solid, while eating my own (increasing) body weight in toast and twiglets. There were reasons of course. But the reasons did nothing to change the entirely predictable and truly unsavoury end result. Something had to be done. And so, finally dragging myself off the sofa of slothdom a little after Christmas, I did the only sensible thing I could think of...
"The next time you get an email from Craigie that starts ‘I’ve got a really good idea…’, send it straight to the trash.”
It was 2am and five tired bodies were hauling their bikes along a pitch black road somewhere near Durness in the far north of Scotland, followed by a morose procession of support vehicles. I do believe that Rickie Cotter actually hated me in that dark moment, but now that those grueling 36 hours and 518 miles are over she will tell you a different story. It’s a good thing that pain and discomfort are hard to retain in memory otherwise I’d have no friends left.
We’ve all been there. That long, hard, lonely ride that feels like it’ll never end. The darkest hour of the night, where your eyelids start to droop and you don’t think you can find it in you to keep turning the pedals. The moments where there’s nothing left in you, where giving up is unthinkable, but going on feels impossible...
It was an honour and a pleasure to be interviewed by Sarah Connolly this morning. An honour because Sarah is pretty much the last word on all things to do with women's competitive cycling, and being recognised by her means we've already made it. A pleasure because she's fab to talk to, and seems almost as excited about the newborn Syndicate as we ourselves are...
This time in two weeks I’ll be sitting on a northbound train on my way up to Inverness where, the following Saturday, seven of us will set off at 6am in an attempt to ride the entire North Coast 500 route in under 36 hours. That’s 500 miles in a day and a half. Scottish miles, at that.
And why are we doing this? Well...
In a nutshell - I'm scared. Now, let's crack open that nut...
