For several months because of the chronic injuries and nerve pain I would describe my sleeping pattern to be erratic at best. Walking up this morning at around 04.00 am and still being awake close to two hours later was not unusual from recent experience.
When you are awake and struggling to get back to sleep your mind starts to process various aspects. This morning I had been thinking about the next stage in my rehabilitation and started to look forward to making a cycle on the smart trainer., perhaps getting up at 05:00 am would have been too keen and there was the risk of waking my lovely wife as one would need to navigate putting alarms off and climbing into the loft.
Instead, I had started to think about the month of September and recalled that around this time of the year it was usually the international break which had freed up some weekends in the past for charity walks and cycles.
The 9th of September 2023, this got me thinking that there was some significance about this date and then I realised that eleven years prior on Sunday 9th September 2012, that I had my first involvement in the “Wee Oscar Knox” campaign by making the cycle from Glasgow Green through to Murrayfield.
I had recently been speaking with some folks from CQN and recognised that this came about from chance meeting with Marc Martin in the Carpark outside the Main Stand of Celtic Park, where we had a brief chat about some of blog posts which Oscar’s dad Stephen had posted in CQN.
At the time Marc had suggested getting the band back together which was a reference to the team that had helped with some organisation of the “Bringing Martin Home” campaign back in 2009, this we can talk about further. At the time without too much thought, had committed to Marc that I would get the ball rolling and would sign up for the cycle which was only a couple of weeks away and then we could regroup in coming days.
Due to the short notice the cycle ended up becoming a solo cycle through to Murrayfield, which allowed me to start raising funds to support the “Wee Oscar” campaign. Positively in the meantime the team did get together before there was a flurry of activity in September with Quiz night’s, large full scale bucket collection’s outside Celtic Park.
Back to the cycling, I recognise that apart from some cycles with pals and the training required for this event. That was only my second big charity cycle where there was some pressure on myself to complete. Having taken some half days from work, I was able to get some training in the short period prior to the event.
When we look back in life and wonder where certain things started, the “Wee Oscar Cycle to Murrayfield, Edinburgh” is an anchor point for me in relation to making project cycles, raising funds for charity, stretching myself and others. We can speak more about Oscar and then many other people that we met in the subsequent years.
This morning a new chapter in my rehabilitation commenced with the need to step up from programme of 45 minutes which covered previous two weeks, to that of 60-minute cycles. Overall, I had felt good being able to start making a 60-minute cycle. Although when checking the temperature in the loft it was 30.5 degrees and having a rather large frame, cycling in this heat did make it challenging.
Having cooled down, later today we will visit the Armadillo with some family to see the Celtic story. I recall seeing the original one back in 1988 and I am looking forward to seeing the refreshed version.
Please support my cycle by donating at www.justgiving.com/page/mouldygoestoseville
Hail Hail
