day 1: the training begins...

so it seems as if i finally may have bitten off more than i can chew...

our cycling day started at duncansby head, the actually most north-easterly point, 2.5 miles out from john o'groats. not many people start here i think, but it just felt more right somehow. 

then we stopped, for quite a while, for the obligatory cheesy tourist photos taken by strangers that get their fingers in the pictures.

i felt a little like we were procrastinating by the time we'd been to two shops for postcards (it turns out we're postcard snobs), to sign a log book, to get a certificate printed that gets stamped both ends that we can give to LATCH to prove what we're doing, and got our postcards hand franked. but eventually we got under way.

the fist few (actually probably about 25) miles flew past, i was beginning to think this was doable, and we got some quite pretty views with sparkly water, though that probably doesn't come across in this photo unfortunately.

then the hills came. and i died. or felt like i was going to. two asthma-attacks-that-couldn't-be-because-i-don't-have-asthma (probably actually bugger-i-can't-do-this-attacks) later and i just about held it together to our first b&b, albeit a little dejected at what felt pretty tough for a 'half' day. i was cursing myself for the lack of training.

and then we saved our strava recordings and found out that we actually not only covered much more ascent than we thought but did it in pretty good time too. so i felt a bit better. still... lessons learned: rest more, eat lots more (while somehow magically avoiding feeling icky) and build a time machine to go back in time and not get so distracted that I forget to train.

luckily tomorrow is 'only' 70 miles, so we are easing in fairly gently...

today's data:

58.5 miles

3,536ft of ascent

3h 59m 54s moving

14.6 mph average speed (!)