It’s too late to back out now The Courier’s team for the Etape Caledonia 2016 has been selected.
In truth, “selected” is something of an exaggeration.
Many of our colleagues expressed an interest when it was confirmed that The Courier would be media sponsor for this year’s event and be entering a team, but when it came to actually signing on the dotted line for the 81-mile cycling challenge names were harder to come by.
There was therefore no need for intensive trials around Caird Park’s velodrome to whittle our list down to a fantastic five.
Instead, our team is made up of the five people who were quickest to rate themselves as fit enough (one) or naive enough to think they might be by May 8 (the other four).
Our Chris Froome figure is Graham McKendry. He’ll be treating the Etape as a warmdown, as he’s in training for a 240km spectacular in Europe in April.
He looks like a cyclist. He talks like a cyclist. He even cycles like a cyclist. We should never have allowed him on the team.
For the rest of us, we’re already using the “we’re taking part to enjoy it” line to manage expectations.
Like Graham, Chris Austin (@Chris_AustinSP) is one of our Glasgow-based Sunday Post colleagues who’ll be wearing Courier colours for the day.
But he’s already broken our rules by actually training and eating healthily, rather than just saying he really should get round to doing that.
Next we have Rachel McConachie (@c_rmcconachie), who is something of an Etape veteran.
She’s done plenty of cycling, she knows the course and she’s taken part before.
While she pretends she’s concerned about keeping up with the boys, she’s fooling no-one.
Ross MacCallum (@C_RMacCallum) is the elder statesman of our group, and has recently returned to cycling after finally accepting his shinty days are behind him.
What he lacks in youthful vigour, he makes up for with a childlike toy obsession.
No cycling gadget has yet been invented that Ross won’t try to squeeze on to his bike, and if he can ditch at least some of them he might just save enough weight to make it up Schiehallion and on to the finish line.
Finally, there’s myself (@C_RRooney).
Built for the downhill sections, I’ve already managed to injure myself in trying to shed some weight for the uphill parts. I’m also learning there’s a big difference between cycling a few miles a day to work, and doing 81 miles with a mountain thrown in for good measure.
Over the next few weeks leading up to May 8 we’ll be posting about our preparations and training runs.
You can follow us on Twitter by using #etapediary, and we’d love to hear from others who are signed up for the Etape this year.
There’s also still time to take part with the Marie Curie 400 team. Click here for more info on that.