Drowned Rats!

Hello from Fort William! It rained heavily today (and as I blog it is hammering down again on my tent - what with wet clothing draped around and my little bed it's rather too cosy). Fortunately at least there was little by way of headwinds. I didn't sleep last night so wasn't quite sure how I'd fare today. My metabolism was in overdrive, I suspect the decaf wasn't and there were more carbs than I expected in something I ate at dinner! Couple that with spending too much time over threshold and a sleepness night ensued! Lessons learned. Anyway, we set off and quite quickly picked up a passenger, after a long climb only a few miles in we enjoyed a good descent and found a train had formed behind us, again. We've decided to take this as a compliment although after about 15 miles of pulling about 16 along behind us at 22 mph we decided to be more forthright and pulled over and indicated someone to come through! We then took a break for a few miles before taking the head again as no one else was playing ball and the pair at the front included a female working hard. After the first pitstop we headed off and remained as a solo pair mostly. Today's route took us along Loch Ness, through Fort Augustus on much busier roads than yesterday so riding single file was the order of the day - this meant I took Dave's wheel and we bowled along at a fair lick. For those unfamiliar with cycling there is a considerable benefit to be had from sitting in the draft and it means that Dave and I can work at equivalent effort levels as he is a much stronger cyclist than me. We finished today in 6:06 for the 99 miles so quite an increase in average speed on yesterday, and with me keeping at a more sensible effort level. We were one of the first in and were complimented on our riding prowess as a 'pair'! Tomorrow is the first of the two biggest days so I need to sleep tonight, fingers crossed. Grokking on; in waterproofs!