The Other

Slight change of plan today. Up 6am and was at bus stop for early bus (having left bike at work yesterday), with running kit in rucksack and planning a sunrise run up Scolty Hill. Except the early bus failed to come at all and so I spent a sodding freezing 90 minutes in freezing cold and intermittent blizzards waiting for the next one. No time to run once I got to the village but I sorely needed to, so abandoned plans for biking Three Hills/Cairn Mon Earn (which has now been rearranged for Friday with another mate) and decided on a slightly less exciting but guilt-sating post-work run up Scolty Hill and then trail ride home. Last minute emergency [cough] coffee and scones with my mate delayed starting off till near sunset. Jaysus, it was hard but in all honesty was expected as I haven't run in a good few days. Clear and cold till the top then blizzard blew in (its been on and off all day) and stayed until I was down, back on the bike and half way home.

Since the snow started this winter, I've been noticing a solitary track from another bike before me in the mornings about 7.30am and occasionally glimpsed a light far away in the distance. I'm nosey and often wondered who The Other was (this isn't as fixated as it sounds - idle musings take mind off burning thighs). Well tonight, after aforementioned run, I was cycling home along the trail a good few hours later than normal and stopped at Crathes to take off a layer. A bike went passed me and he shouted hello but before he went out of earshot, something possessed me & I shouted like some weird psycho woman "Do you go my way in the morning?". Far from screaming loudly and pedalling faster, he turned round grinning! Yes, he is The Other! Had a chat about who, when, why, where and tyres (as you do) and buses trying to kill us if we venture onto the roads (which we don't now) and it was nice to put a face to a tread pattern at last.