Day 14: Helensburgh to Dumbarton

Yesterday was technically a rest day, though “rest” might be a stretch. We handed off the ball to the Glasgow Warriors, part of this rugby relay. The experience was electric. There’s something special about seeing this symbolic handover, from local grassroots clubs all the way to professional stadiums. No one has any idea which ball is coming either! Which is sort of the point!. It really makes the miles feel even more meaningful.

Then came today.

The day started with a climb that could have been designed by a sadistic mountain goat. A “big, big hill,” as I groaned at the time, complete with undulating terrain, chaotic roads, and the kind of route that makes your arms write their last will and testament before breakfast.

In total, I logged nearly 45 km. For context, a marathon is 42. So yeah, I went full Forrest Gump today. The last 10K was just hill after hill, culminating in a cruel sign that casually announced a 16% incline. You never really want to see percentages when you're wheeling a wheelchair, unless it's on a discount code for new trainers.

I climbed that thing in a trance. Hydration? Check. Nutrition? Sure. Sanity? Not so much. At one point, the incline hit 18%. I don’t know who approved that bit of landscape, but I have notes.

The hill broke me, and then, somehow, it didn’t. I reached the top in a sort of primal state, somewhere between euphoria and collapse. Tears came out of nowhere. Not the neat, photogenic kind. Full-on, ugly-crying-on-a-random-hill tears. I’d never felt that much emotion outside of a finish line. It wasn’t even the end of the wheel, it was just one savage checkpoint on a relentless course.

But as always, it didn’t end there. The trail kept kicking, one sneaky ascent after another. By the time I stumbled to the day’s finish, my shoulders felt like they belonged to someone else (someone much, much angrier, and stronger than me!).

Still, I made it. Just about!

Tonight it’s all about recovery: ice, food, and pretending I haven’t looked at tomorrow’s route yet. Because, as the saying goes, “nothing worth doing was ever easy.” And today? Today was the proof of that!