England : Cumbria Scottish Borders run - 26th July 2014

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tug benson

Survived the Tour O the borders 2013
Location
Alloa
It was 30C in Kelso at 4pm. So further south it must have been hotter ;)
Aviemore hit 29C on Friday..Crazy
 
Location
Gore Glen
A great day out in great company. Thanks to @MikeW-71 for organising, was a nice route with some very nice hills (I think I may have blinked and missed the 15% bit, I can't remember going up it). The weather was a bit hot (not hot enough for a lady to stand at the side of the road to tell you its melting though.) then a bit windy which made it a bit more interesting, but couldn't take away from the views and the banter.
 
Well, I am absolutely wiped out today but I'd do it again in a heartbeat.... The first 30km or so climbed gradually and were fairly cool compared to the heat that was to come; a couple of fun descents and short digs later and we were at the cafe stop in Newcastleton for a very welcome sausage and tattie scone roll :hungry:(curiously no one ordered a cake, perhaps the heat was beginning to take effect?!) The first part of the climb out of Newcastleton was short and sharp (@Edwardoka wanted a bit extra hill training so went back down to do it again :wacko: ) A long slow drag to the top followed which seemed to go gradually up and down for aeons; though as always what goes up must come down and a speedy descent was the reward before the next climb and the long descent into Langholm. On arrival, water bottles were filled and heads were cooled before we posed for a pic' with the glamorous backdrop of the Langholm public toilets! :whistle: The last part had a couple of testing climbs but what really made it really tough was the leg sapping wind for the last ten miles or so... overall it was a great ride and I was glad to make it to the end reasonably comfortably as I've never completed a ride of over 100km in one go before (save for some pretty angry sunburn on my legs, I now have tan, okay burn, lines on my legs for the first time!)

Huge thanks to @MikeW-71 for organising, @GBC for kindly transporting me and Ed to and fro and of course to all for your great company... looking forward to next month's trip even more now! :smile:
 
@Edwardoka wanted a bit extra hill training so went back down to do it again :wacko:

In my defence I thought that the big climb was 4 miles outside of Newcastleton rather than a 4 mile climb out of Newcastleton, and as such I had been psyching myself up for a big climb ahead (during the big climb) , when I learned at the cattle grid that the worst of it was over I decided to go back and redo it in one go.
:bicycle:
 
He's doing one 30th August :smile:

Yep... I'm certainly feeling a bit more confident about being able to do the distance, though I still have a few doubts tbh :shy:
 
A few miscellaneous pics from Saturday :smile:

(Apologies I didn't get more, I think Mike has a couple too...)

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