The obnoxious buzz on my smartphone announcing a spam text’s arrival shattered my fitful sleep like a hammer blow to a glass bowl. Seeing 11:35 displayed on the screen followed by a quick look at the window to register the light glaring through the edges of the curtain, I became gripped with panic believing that I overslept.
SHIT! I thought last night at 10:00 I’d set the alarm for 3:15. Did I forget to select “AM”? The anguish over this silly yet costly mistake rattled me into full consciousness.
I looked at my phone again with my glasses on; now I saw the suffix “PM”. Glancing over again at the window, I realized that the light was not from the sun, but from Tomintoul’s very bright streetlights. Even with my sleep deprived rando-brain after 3 consecutive nights of minimal shuteye in between long intervals of strenuous days riding through England, Wales and now Scotland, I didn’t have to be Newton or Leibnitz to figure out that the difference between 10:00PM and 11:30PM came out to… no sleep at all!
I collapsed back into bed. The scramble riled me up so much that no amount of effort to count sheep, including all the herds I’ve ridden past in the Scottish countryside, could return me to my date with Somnus. As I tossed and turned, I now felt aches in my joints, my sinus becoming congested. Oh no! Did that same flu that caused Michael to become a DNF statistic at the end of day 1 finally catch up to me?
Staring at the ceiling, I wrestled with that fate of becoming another DNF statistic after 4 days of toiling…..
Land’s End – Where the Fun Begins
Day 2 – Wheels on the Bike Are Falling Off, Falling Off, Falling Off