Ben Lawers and Stockiemuir

Well, after the wonderful break from doing not very much exercise that Sara's wedding gave me, I felt I really had to get a move on and do some amount of work. I managed to persuade a friend, Marthos, to drive me to Ben Lawers, where upon we ascended the giddying heights to enjoy the spectacular and breathtaking views from the top.
On our way back, I was sorely tempted to climb back to the summit, because the cloud appeared to be lifting somewhat.

Marthos persuaded me this was a bad idea!
I decided that it would be nice to drop in on the rest of the team on the drive home, so we went to visit Sara and Colin, where we were rewarded with some more mountain ... this time in the form of cake!



The next few days involved many visits from friends local and abroad so I spent more time being a diligent host (tidying the apartment, making sure I had
food etc etc), and totally failed to get out on my bike, so today (Monday), I decided I could procrastinate no more and went for a ride out to Stockiemuir via Blairskaith and Blanefield. It was a nice day, and the view from the top of the hill climb was definitely rewarding!

I was sorely tempted to stop off at the Carbeth Inn, a nice biker pub between Drymen and Glasgow (there were a few bikes outside), but thought better off it and headed back in to the city center. Dinner tonight is Brazilian ... lots of meat, all you can eat buffet!

I am pleasantly surprised by my trip time for the ride ... 44.8km in 1h46m .. an average of 25.2km/h ... it seems that I'm on track to get a good time this year, despite the fact I've fallen behind with the training!

Only 2 more weeks of rides/hills to go ... and I'm feeling confident that I might be first across the line after all!