Day 3: Loch Linnhe to East Renfrewshire

Those of you with keen vision will spot that our Garmin file said we cycled 130 miles today and yet we were promised only 127 miles. An extra 3 miles when you're already cycling over 100 - that makes no difference I hear you shout. Well, you are wrong. Very wrong. When you've been out on the bike for nearly 11 hours and the only thing keeping you going is the finish in 5 miles, it is actually pretty horrific to discover that you have to do another 8 miles.

Today was actually pretty tough. Despite a wonderful massage the night before, Justin's knee started playing up 10 minutes in. Every time his left leg pushed on the pedal, stabbing pains occured in the knee. When you're cycling 130 miles, this starts to become a bit problematic. It would be fair to say, that today was the beginning of a very low ebb for Justin. With seven more long days stretching out in front of him with pretty significant pain - he is not ashamed to admit that he had a little cry on the bike - quite a number of times. However, it is really the support that he had got through sponsorship, combined with the knowledge that if he had to pull out and Adam managed to complete it, he would never live it down and the threats of withdrawal of sponsorship from certain 'friends' that kept him going.

Justin with his left leg rolled up, not to represent membership of some gang land cycling crew, but waiting in desperation for the ambulance man to spray his leg with some cold spray. Afer that he applied ibuleve gel (whilst already on maximum doses of diclofenac), tiger balm, a tubigrip and a neoprene knee support. Unfortunately, straight after this little emergency stop we were faced with a bit of a slog climbing up to the Glen Coe ski resort. However, with every climb comes a beautiful descent and we certainly got that. This gave Justin's knees the chance to recover from the climb up. His knees are still peeling from the combined effect of deep heat, tiger balm, ibuleve gel all covered in a neoprene bandage for 7 consecutive days!

Near the end of this stage, we started to head towards Glasgow. However, a punishingly up and down diversion around the outskirts left us feeling pretty exhausted and a little bit desperate to finish. By this stage we were well above the longest distance either of us had ever managed on a bike and our bodies had no idea what was happening to them. However, worse was yet to come.

In an effort to find us a beautifully appointed quiet campsite, the organisers took us on a punishing roller coast ride around tiny little country lanes that only ever seemed to go uphill. By this stage, Justin's right knee had started to hurt almost as much as his left knee and the crying had started again (on the inside this time) and he was desperate to finish. It was therefore with a huge sigh of relief that we both crossed the finish line of day 3.

We were clearly not the only ones to find this stage tough. The medical centre at base camp was full of very pale people either lying down or sitting shivering with space blankets. We booked in for another massage, but were soon thwarted by the rapid expansion of the medical tent into the massage space. Our concerns increased a little when toilets starting being moved next to the medical tent and people started shouting at us for bringing food out of the catering tent. After the little mention that the organisers made the day before about being careful with handwashing as someone had fallen sick it began to dawn on us that we were facing the start of a bug in the camp. As the day progressed, and the queues for the toilets increased, our concerns were definitely realised. "The Bug" as it became known and spoken about in half hushed tones had well and truly struck the RAB camp.

Luckily, amidst the sickness, Justin found his saviour - Sue - in the most unlikely of places, the drying tent. After waiting a little too long in a hot tent with contact lens that became so dry they fell out, Justin had a consultation with the resident physio, Sue. She did some crazily painful stuff with his legs and knees that definitely came under the rubric 'no pain, no gain' and sent him on his way with instructions on how to do it himself, some stretches and a lot of well wishes for the next day. All of this meant that we didn't get to bed until about 11:30. Not great when you have a 5am start for another 130 miles the next day.