Exercise overload...

I just got back on home today after doing a rather intense cycle from Edinburgh to Glasgow along the Union canal and Forth and Clyde canal. The trip was around 55 or so miles which we did in one day. It took us about 8 or 9 hours including stops if I remember rightly.

We set off from Edinburgh in the car to get dropped past the busiest part of town around half 9 or 10 on Friday morning. The weather was quite good for the morning, but the canal paths were a bit more uncomfortable than the ones later on nearer Glasgow. But by the end of it, it didn't really matter, because I was really not enjoying it...the weather turned bad, with quite strong winds coming our way as well as constant drizzly rain which got heavier and heavier as the day went on... We had a few stops along the way, in Linlithgow for some lunch around 12ish and then through a 620m long tunnel (apparantely) in nearly pitch black alongside the canal to the Falkirk wheel (which I didn't realise was such a tourist attraction.) It is the only one of its kind in the world I think, but don't quote me on that, I'm far from an expert on rotating boat lifts XD To be honest, its probably the only reason anyone would want to go to Falkirk, no offence to people from there but its a bit of a shithole...actually, not as much as some of the parts of Glasgow we went through :p

So once we got their eventually, cycling through the rather annoying rain and wind, we only had about half an hour to get a shower and a bit of a rest before we had to get a taxi. My dad had already booked the taxi to take us up to the west end for a meal and stuff. So we were going to meet my cousin at the Ubiquitous Chip, a bar/restaurant in Ashton Lane in the West End. I knew this was bound to happen, but we got ID'd trying to get in and I hadn't thought of bringing my passport at all, it was back home...my brother James was the same, he didn't think it was necessary to bring it. After all, if it got lost or wet, we'd have to shell out for a new one. Yeah, so it was news to me that we were going out for a drink before the curry in Ashoka just across the wee lane. So I was pretty pissed I'd got ID'd, but after a minute or two, it was rather funny because my dad somehow managed to get us in by leading the bouncer to believe we were booked in for a meal upstairs. Silly people...this was an expensive bit of town, so a group of people with a dinner reservation was quite a lot of money they would be missing out on (if we had indeed been eating there..)

So once we had got across to the restaurant and started eating, I remembered how good the curries there can be (particularly the Peshwari Nan breads :D) so I ate lots of that and somehow started to feel really light headed and sick, dont know if it was because I had too much to drink on an empty stomach, it was too hot in the restaurant or if it was because of the exertion of cycling all that way and then eating, or some combination. I went and got some air and was feeling slightly better after that though.

So once we eventually got to the hotel, I was looking forward to getting a good sleep. I couldn't get to sleep for bloody ages, it was too hot and uncomfy in the room and the walls were really thin...eventually got to sleep after putting my ipod on to cut out the snoring and other noise (I'm a light sleeper.)

We could have cycled back half of the way, but I took the train back from Glasgow, I was feeling too achey to do much more cycling to be honest.