Day 15 – Tuesday 7th April
- 20 minutes plus 5 minutes’ cooldown level 11
- Flat bench, deadlifts, incline bench and squats
- Max heart rate = 154bpm
- Calories = 210
- Distance covered = 7.1 miles
- Total distance so far = 150.55 miles
A good rest yesterday afternoon to try and recover from the tough morning. Thankfully I’m back on track today and got through just over seven miles – my best yet on a ‘normal gym day’!
Such a glorious day today, and Hold On Tight and Mr Blue Sky with The Electric Light Orchestra (The Very Best of) kept the wheels spinning.
Leaving Aldourie and the shores of Loch Ness, I cut across country to get back to my route on the A9 and enjoyed the beautiful scenery at Loch Duntelchaig and Loch Ashie along the way. I just about made it to Balnafoich – it used to be little more than a croft but has now developed into quite a settlement – what a beautiful place for a holiday.
Loch Ness and Loch Lomond are the names we are familiar with – but in fact there are 31,460 freshwater lochs (including lochans) in Scotland and bizarrely, for unknown reasons, there is also a lake! Lake of Menteith used to be a loch but in the 19th century was mysteriously changed to a Lake. Lochs or lakes, I think it is a fair assumption I won’t be visiting them all but I hope to enjoy just a few on my journey south!
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And so, I reach the last day of my second week on my epic journey and just over two weeks since Britain went into its own epic journey of lockdown. Thankfully spring hasn’t gone into lockdown and every day brings new delights – just look how far the chestnut tree has come!
I came across this poem which was written in 1869 by Kathleen O’Mara and reprinted in 1919 at the time of the Spanish ‘flu pandemic.
And people stayed at home
And read books
And listened
And they rested
And did exercises
And made art and played
And learned new ways of being
And stopped and listened more deeply
Someone meditated, someone prayed
Someone met their shadow
And people began to think differently
And people healed
And in the absence of people who
Lived in ignorant ways
Dangerous, meaningless and heartless,
The earth also began to heal
And when the danger ended and
People found themselves
They grieved for the dead
And made new choices
And dreamed of new visions
And created new ways of living
And completely healed the earth
Just as they were healed
Check out the map to see how we’ve come!
