Day 7! The wet one!
It was time to say farewell to the beautiful sheeps hut, and make my way back to where I finished on Saturday. I awoke to one of the most dangerous hazards in this whole event, rain! I looked out of the window and thought, oh no! 1st port of call. Don't panic! Check the weather, it said 60-90% chance of rain all day. 🤦♂️ Okay, still no need to panic, perhaps the terrain wouldn't be too bad? So I asked Cat & Neil. They have been diligently looking ahead at things like this. There was to be a nasty hill or two. So the decision was to begin and see how far I could get without taking too many risks. So that's what I did!
At the start, a lovely chap who had been following me on twitter for years, since I did the London Marathon in 2022. He us a Reverent. He saw me in the line for my number and took my photo, and tweeted that he was behind the world record holder for the half marathon. I was so taken a back by that post. The fact that anyone would tweet about little old me, was amazing.
So he saw me off. He drove all the way from Loch Ness. Which I now know was 26 miles away! 🫶 It was lovely to meet him in person. What a lovely chap.
So I began wheeling. It was that drizzly rain, that gets you soaked through, even though you don't think it will. After only a few minutes my hands were slipping on the push rims, but it was a fairly good road, so I wanted to carry on. I wheeled through a a town, and then a busy road. Negotiated my 1st large roundabout, and then into another town. Had some lovely shouts of encouragement, and even got stopped again with someone wanting to give a donation. A lovely lady called Helen, who I chatted with for a few minutes whilst having a flapjack. Pams are all gone now, so I'm stuck with very dry ones! 🤦♂️ I am always shocked when people give donations on the road. But so far we have recieved one every day! Which is amazing.
So I carried on wheeling and came to, what looked like a very steep, but not too long, hill. I was wrong again! Not about the steep bit, that was true. I was the long bit. It went on, getting steeper and steeper, for 10km. At the same time the rain came down it's heaviest all day. My hands kept slipping all the time. I had to jam my thumb into the pushrims, so that's I could move at all. Despite this, they were still slipping. I kept moving and stopping to wipe my pushrims and my gloves down with a flannel. But it diddnt seem to do much. It was just heartbreaking. I wanted to carry on and make it to the finishline. Yet, I couldn't grip the pushrims. I did make it to the top of the climb. At the top I had to rest for a moment. My hands were shaking like mad. My arms were burning like they were on fire. My hands were hurting so much. They felt as if they were bruised and battered. I sat at the top of the hill, in a lay by with so many emotions flooding through me. I just wanted to cry. To cry in elation that I'd managed to tackle something so hard and something that I'd never done to that extent before. Secondly, for the work to come and if I could carry on with everything so exhausted?
When you wheel in the rain the effort you have to put in is triple the amount of when it's dry. The road surface has extra resistance due to water and everything is just so difficult. I knew I would have days like this, but I ignored them until now. It's easier to block out the difficult parts ⛰️💪
The next part was more hills, which were all very steep and them this immediately went into a treturous down hill. This is super dangerous. If I can't grip the pushrims, so that I could slow my descent, then the chair could literally run away from me, and zoom with me in it to anywhere at a very fast pace. I cannot ever, not be in full control of it. So when it's raining like that, this is so dangerous. I did manage a very large and tough downhill. I had to change my gloves halfway down it, though. I actually went through my largest volume of gloves in one day. 4 pairs. 2 of which are completely useless now!
Then it was onto another large up hill. The rain was coming down even stronger. It been out in it for 4 and a half hours by this point. I'd wheeled just under 40km. I made it to the top of the hill, and we had a group chat about safety. Cat went off in the support vehicle to do a recci of the route as we couldn't see it. She came back to break the news of a very large climb with an immense camber, followed by a very steep downhill section. We all made the decision to stop there for safety. When we had loaded up and drove that section I could see it for myself. It was the right decision. But now I know how tough tomorrow is going to be! Something I'd prefer not to know!
We drove to the B&B right in Lochness. A beautiful little culdisac full of B&B's and food places. Our room forthe night was lovely. Twin beds again! Which isn't great. I'd really prefer to sleep in the same bed as my wife, but the accommodation was booked at very short notice, so Mike (the chap sorting accommodation) did a fantastic job, with only 2 weeks notice.
We went for tea at Fiddlers Highland restaurant in Loch Ness. The food was really good. Pam and I has Venison Stroganoff. It was very tasty, but I had trouble eating it all again! This is becoming a regular thing! All I can do is my best! 👌
So on to tomorrow. I'm nervous about this one! But I hope it will be dry and okay 🙏🙏
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Lexi Chambers