Did the 2 bridges gravel APR this morning in Linlithgow. Great group ride with the usual apr group system. I was in the first group with enough of a punch in this group for me. Jumping on the faster groups as they come by. These are cracking training rides if anyone is looking for 80km of mixed surface to get their teeth into. Gravel Pursuit Scotland is the Facebook group.

For once I was at a stupid event and it wasn't my idea. Morgan invited his old da to do this 24 hour MTB race as a pair. I could easily have stuck to my guns after completing it as a quad, a pair and solo but scars can heal, only to be re-opened. If you don't know the race its held in Contin Forest just west of Inverness and as its 24hours of lapping a 12.4km track there are 17 hours of darkness. For such an undertaking you have to have sound support ( 1st time round we did wing it) and @Zoe Newsam and @Mark Brown stepped up and actually made the weekend for us. Can't say enough thank yous. We travelled up the day before ( morgan made a detour to the Lecht for a ski day as prep?!). Mark and I loaded the camper van and found ourselves a base camp spot. Chilled out fed and watered and we set off in the morning. We had a plan to take laps about and then switch to doubles at 10pm to allow some naps. Chatting with the Specialised guys we changed plan and decided to do doubles as soon as it got dark. Morgan set us off piped up to a Le mans start running to the bike and 10am we were off. Big smiles at the end of lap one and off I went - more big smiles. We both had smooth laps in optimal conditions - mainly hard packed snow cover so a smidge over 2 hours and we were set. Then the temperature rose. Conditions changed so under the snow were ice ruts so as the snow turned to slush it was almost impossible to hold the front wheel straight so the times lengthened but we were still grand. Mark had already replaced Morgans brakes andmy tyres were pronounced unsuitable so they were replaced too. Handy having an excellent mechanic in the crew. 6 laps done and dusted sitting in around 14th place. Lights on and Morgan set off on the first double. After his first lap, his main headlight was running out of charge. This is the main lesson of the day. We hired the biggest baddest Exposure lights and plan was - one of those each, a head mounted light and a back up on the bars. When we picked up the lights they said 7 hours on full beam... so we didn't mount the back ups. We gave Morgan a small headtorch as safety and off he went. All good , 8 laps done and its about 6pm so dinner time. The great thing about this style of event is that fuelling is real food - so bolognaise , burgers, home made chicken soup, tea , coffee, home baking and erm Red Bull.

The Ego is a pain in the arse. Worse now we have the falsehood of social media. Everyone well almost everyone runs their easy stuff too hard and the hard stuff too easy. Strava is hilarious 'easy run' and HR is in the 160s..right you are fannyboz. Do most of the run volume sub 75% of your real max HR or even better 70%. Thank us later. @Tom Chambers our earlier chat ref a fine coach or coaches that knew all along. Your IM run will be 10-15% slower than your marathon PB ...at least. If you ego fest the bike 10 to 15% plus another 30 mins. Gonna no dae that?