An active weekend

I'm pooped. Was supposed to go for a run yesterday with the rat race girls but I woke up to find rain bucketing down. Half of my brain said 'It could be raining for the rat race too you know'. And the other half said 'All the more reason to stay dry now.' A few texts confirmed my team mates were of similar mind and we headed to Ratho instead.

I'd only been to Ratho a couple of times before and it's improved a bit (not sure what that photo on the left hand menu of their web page is though...looks like somebody's brain). The council have taken it over (hurrah for Edinburgh Council!) and actually got as far as tarmacing the car park. Plus there were actually people there and queuing to get in. Hopefully it will fulfil its potential as the world's biggest climbing arena.

I had to do the aerial assault course because Callum made me. Well, he wanted to do it and I wasn't going to be shown up by a 10 year old. But it was actually really fun and only as hard work as you make it. They strap you into a harness and send you off on a rope and pulley sliding across to the start point 100 feet up in the air. Then you get to scramble over swinging logs, rope ladders and rope bridges, all while suspended on high. Whenever the going gets too difficult, you can simply sit down in your harness and swing merrily along, which I tended to do a lot. I figure the adrenalin from being up there at all would be burning plenty of calories.

We had a bit of a climb too. I did three, none of them very good. Even the easy routes which I can manage at Alien Rock were hard because they were about twice as long and by half way my arms would start to tremble. But I did some bouldering and belayed Al, at one point ending up suspended a foot off the ground as I brought him down, due to a slight weight differential.
Lee and her friend did loads, with Lee happily nipping up all sorts.

Today was the Two Cities Cycle Ride from Dunfermline to Leith. I met Lee at hers and picked up her old/my new bike. We were bused from Ocean Terminal over to Fife, to a vintage bus museum which, somewhat randomly, was our start point. Must remember to tell my dad about it - there was a steam engine and everything. There was also a fantastic old caff with formica tables corralled in a corner of the bus barn, where steely-haired ladies gave us tea and chocolate biscuits for a pound. Thus fortified, we set off.

It had occurred to me on the bus (a little too late, perhaps) that I had never cycled this far in my life, and had not in fact been on a bike other than one trip to Glentress and a gentle ride around Galloway in the past ten years. Luckily the route was not too demanding other that a long hill up to the Forth Road Bridge. Cycling over the bridge was lovely - great views and enough time to take them in. I told the gang about my trip up the Sydney Harbour bridge and how they'd told us that if you fell from this height, hitting the water was as hard as hitting concrete. 'Makes you wonder why the North Bridge jumpers don't come here instead - it'd be a much more reliable way to finish yourself off,' pointed out Jo's friend Juliano.

Even so, I was pedalling veeery slooowly by the end. Coming back from Cramond, I said to Jo 'Oh, no there's a huge hill round this corner.'

'I don't think so,' she said encouragingly, 'there's a slight incline and then it's all downhill.'

'That slight incline is the hill I'm talking about...'

To be fair, you can go a lot further a lot faster on a bike than running. It still took us three and a half hours though, which I reckon means Colin could have kept up with us running. Kept up with me, that is - I was definitely the weakest link. So lots of cycling, I think about twice a week, is called for in preparation for the 80km of the rat race.

And maybe some padded shorts...my right buttock (not my left for some reason) is reminding me that it is not used to having to do any exercise. My feet, on the other had, seem quite relieved.

Oh, and just to note, it was a really well organised event with lots of marshals (we did get a bit lost at one point, but not very) and refreshments. And a great goodie bag and medal which I wasn't expecting at all. The Rotary Club know how to do these things.