H'ola

Arrived back from Majorca yesterday after a braw two week holiday. Me and Beed even managed to get some training done in the scorchio conditions. Our means of transport was a bike...of sorts. I don't think we will be recommending one of these for next year.

Despite going at a leisurely pace for most of the time (the wives were in the back and the kids were leading the way at the front), once we dropped the rest of them off, we did go hell for leather around the Belle Vue complex. Rumours that we were taking it too seriously by attempting to race and overtake kids in go-karts are completely unfounded :-)

Pleased to say that I have come back from two weeks of cooked breakfasts and nice evening meals to discover that I have actually lost weight (well about a pound!). Training now begins in ernest. Stuart's bike arrives tomorrow and I am hopefully getting mine this week.

PS - those pink bags are not ours.

9 Months To Go!

In exactly 9 months time it will all be over...I hope. The Maggie's Monster Bike and Hike will take place on the 5th May 2007 and the four of us hope to have completed it by midnight on Sunday the 6th. Starting in Fort William we are heading off on a 30 mile cycle ride and then once that is out of the way, we are getting the hiking boots on and making our way towards Inverness - another 40 odd miles away!

Training has already gotten underway...well for some of the team. Beed and Sink saddled up and cycled from Dunfermline to Oakley and back, a round trip of circa 18 miles. Stuart has covered hundreds of miles this weekend - but he has driven nearly all of them. As for me, I have promised myself that serious training will take place once I am back from my hols in three weeks. Until then, I plan to stuff my face with lovely food and drink, stand on the scales and then let battle commence.

We are looking for all the support and backing we can get for our attempt to tame the Monster. There will soon be a facility set up on www.justgiving.com so that people can sponsor us online. This means your sponsor money will go straight into Maggie's Centre bank account and you don't have to worry about us hounding you for your cash! We are also planning to stage a race night in Dunfermline in November at the Baldridgeburn Institute, and more details will be posted here when this is confirmed.

Whilst the sponsorship money is important - we need to raise at least £2000 between the four of us - your moral support is also welcome. Please feel free to keep dropping by and posting comments if you want - even if it is just to tell us how mad we are. Stuart told me it was the equivalent of cycling 30 miles then walking from the tolls at the Forth Bridge all the way to the tolls at the Tay Bridge. When you put it like that, its pretty scary stuff. However, this time next year, I hope to be sitting writing the final entry in this blog, 2 stone lighter (well, you can hope!), covered in blisters, aching from head to toe having been part of a team that has raised a shedload of cash for an inspirational charity.

Cheers!