Day 4: East Renfrewshire to Ullswater (too tired to even get the stage photo right)

Today, the ride was as long as the promised 130 miles. Great!

Justin managed to create quite a stir in the starting line up.A sudden wave of nausea struck and he thought he was going to throw up. People were starting to get a little tetchy about signs of sickness as they were keen not to be struck down with 'The Bug' and so rapidly made room. It was ok though, just a combination of tiredness, worry about his knee and difficulty keeping down a bowl of porridge (which was very well cooked incidentally if any RAB caterers are reading) at 5:30 am. However, the stress of the occasion did, you guessed it, make him cry a little bit. Or crocodile tears as Jo Green called them. She was just cross because Justin had nearly thrown up and had caused a scene in "her" queue!!

Queues for the loo! A recurring theme.

After the drama in the start line and the pain of Day 3, Day 4 was actually not too horrendous. Justin transferred the tubi grip to the right knee and kept the neoprene support on the left one and Sue's painful work from the night before seemed to do the trick. Throughout the day, we were rather excited about the prospect of leaving Scotland (sorry any Scottish friends - nothing personal, but it just seemed a significant milestone) and seeing the signs to Gretna Green kept reminding us just how close we nearly were.

As we arrived in Gretna Green (and a well earned pit stop) we were met by a group of very excitable school children who clapped and shouted and screamed and smiled and cheered and supported us. This all served to give us an extra little energy boost (and you guessed it, made Justin cry again!!! - spotted a theme yet?) As we left the pit stop, we were very excited about getting a picture of us by the 'Welcome to England' sign and were expecting to find many other RABers doing the same. As it turned out, we were the only ones - but it was definitley worth it as you can see by the lovely specimens below!

As we cycled into Cumbria, we were met with some beautiful scenery and as we approached the Lake District, the sight of familiar mountains and roads gave us the extra little burst we needed to make it over the last few climbs. That and the extra chocolate and water stop that the organisers put in to try and prevent a recurrence of the dehydrated and exhausted riders that had arrived at the end of Day 3. Oh, and not forgetting the lovely woman who stopped by the roadside to give us some iced mocha.

The day ended as we arrived at the base of Kirkstone Pass - quite a killer climb. Our campsite was based at the bottom of it, just to psych us all out as we waited for the climb first thing in the morning. Carol and Andrew were waiting for us at the camp with emergency supplies of painkillers, more neoprene knee supports and sudocreme (you can never have enough with that amount of time on the saddle). It was lovely to see some familiar faces and after a quick bite to eat and a painful session with the lovely physiotherapist Sue it was time for bed. Adam finally started to show the strain of cycling for four consecutive days and also saw the medics for some achilles tendonitis and gluteal pain. He also was subjected to some very painful calf muscle poking and prodding of the 'no pain, no gain' school of medicine.