3 days to go....

Since Sunday I've been thinking every few hours "where will I be this time next week", and then trying to estimate how far up the country I will have got!

Funny thing is, when I woke up this morning, I thought "where have I got to cycle to today?", and then pretty much straight away thought "oh no, I don't want to get on my bike again"!!

I guess I've been living the trip a bit too closely the past few days!!

5 Days and we're off

I just realised that I said nothing about this weekends rides being the last training I plan to do before the ride.

With less training this weekend, I had more time at home. Jules and I used the time to prepare for the race. I've packed my kit-box & bought a few spares (tyres, tubes, brake blocks etc). We ran through the route which Dave has done and excellent job on. We sorted the house out so people have places to sleep on Friday night. I think we're pretty much ready.

Each day that goes by now, another thing happens which feels like a step closer to the race. On Friday, the team shirts arrived & Ciaran, Simon & I tried them out on our ride. It's going to look SO cool when the whole team gets together!

This time next week, we'll be cycling past Wales!!!!

Yikes

Ciarans winter warmer!

I did the same 40 mile route twice this weekend. On Saturday with Ciaran, and on Sunday with both Ciaran and Simon.

I had wanted to show Ciaran the route that Rich's friend Fraser had taken us on a week ago, but Ciaran had also wanted to show me a route he does over the winter for base training. Basically it takes in a bunch of hills.

Funny thing was it was largely the same route that Fraser had done (except we did not do White Down hill on Ciarans route, instead looping back on ourselves and heading back the way we had come.

I felt rubbish on Saturday - especially on the hills. Not sure why, maybe lack of sleep. I was out late on Thursday night at the Times Charity awards where CHASE had been nominated for a prize. Thankfully I felt much better on Sunday. So, apart from not drinking I will now need to make sure I get enough sleep up to the ride!

The Garmin was also not on top form on Saturday. When I loaded the route onto my computer when we returned, the route itself looked right, but the elevation was way off. It was quite wet and cloudy, so I wonder if it could not get a good enough signal. I've included the two elevations below so you can see how far out it was (the top one is Sunday and looks right to me)!

Some lovely hills before breakfast

Off cycling on my own again. I managed to drag myself out of bed in time to leave at 6am again. I was aiming to get back by 9am, and planning just to do some hills.

I couldn't help thinking about the people doing the London to Brighton today. I wonder how they are getting on. I was tempted to text Maire (on my team, who is doing London to Brighton) to wish her well and tell her I was doing more hills than she was. Couldn't decide if this would make her feel better or worse, so decided against it.

I set out to try and do the same route that Fraser had shown us yesterday, but ended up missing a left turn and just seeing where I ended up.

It was a beautiful morning, and as soon as I got down off a hill I tried to find another one to go up!! I'm not going to describe the roue because it was not exactly a straight line. However, you can see the profile of the hills in the picture!

Hilly Hundred

You see the thing about Rich is that he's a bit random. You either choose to go along with him or you get scared & steer well clear. Todays plan was to meet up on the Windsor loop, then go do some Surrey hills & meet a friend of Rich's called Fraser en route. After I'd got my hundrd in I could duck out and go home while Rich continued to cycle with Fraser, and then when he'd had enough he would cycle home again (after all it's only 50 miles...). Rich's plans are always complicated.

Skeptical, I set out alone for Windsor at 6am. It was the first time I'd cycled alone for a few weeks, and I found my mind wandering thinking about the race, thinking about Fraser (my Fraser, not Rich's friend...) and thinking how blummin cold it was.

I arrived at the loop in good time, and decided just to cycle round it as I was early rather than phone Rich. As it turned out Rich was running late, so I got a complete circuit in before we met up. By this time I'd done over 30 miles.

We set off back towards Guildford following the route I'd taken to get up there.

"Right, let's get started" said Rich - he was looking forward to getting some hills in. I took him up Pebble Hill (out of West Horsley) as a warm up. Then a nice long downhill towards Ranmore, and up Ranmore via Crocknorth Road. Once we'd got to the top, we did a U-turn straight back down and up the long descent we'd just dropped down in order to meet Fraser at Shere.

As it turned out, we were a bit early to Shere (I'd thought it would take longer to get back up the hill), so we did a quick blast out through Gomshall and back.

By this time we'd done over 60 miles, so I was pleased when Fraser called to say he was in the Lucky Duck tea-room. We had a quick break & Fraser bought us some tea. I'm sure it was the nicest tea I've ever tasted.

It's been a while since I've seen Fraser, and I'd fogotten just how fit he is. Whilst we were drinking our tea, he told us about how he had won the Dorking 10k race for the third year in succession a few weeks ago having completed a triathalon earlier in the morning!! He is currently in training for an iron-man race in July.

After tea, Fraser decided to show us one of his routes & we took the long hill up out of Shere up Sandy lane and on to Hound House lane. This was a fantastic climb - I've only ever done it coming down, and remember thinking I didn't fancy doing it in the upwards direction, but it's actually quite nice; gentle gradient for 3 miles or so.

Sharp left & a long descent into Peaslake then straight up a hill again across towards Holmbury St Mary. Another nice long descent through Holmbury and Abinger Hammer. A short blast along the A25 and then left up White Down hill. I hadn't appreciated that White Down hill is a bit of a legend (along with Leith Hill & Boxhill) amongst local cyclists. Up until this point, we'd all been sticking together on the uphills and I noticed that Rich & I were more out of breath trying to talk than Fraser was. However at White Down hill, Fraser just disappeared leaving Rich and me looking like amateurs!

The top of White Down brings you onto Ranmore common again, and we turned along my normal route towards Boxhill.

Time was ticking on (I'd said I'd be back by 1pm), so I decided not to join them on Boxhill, and turned back towards Guildford. I was worried I wasn't going to make my 100 miles I'd been aiming for, but Rich seemed confident I should do it; and since everything else had gone well with his random plans, I had no reason to doubt him.

I decided to go back via Polesden Lacy because I thought it would be flatter. Wrong! Still it was a new hill I'd not done before. When I say I went via Polesden Lacy I mean it quite literally, and cycled all the way up to it before realising it is a dead end!

Back down to the A246 and my morning training ride home through Effingham.

Rich was wrong by the way. My Garmin said 99.98 miles by the time I got home!

Quick fifty

The plan yesterday had been to leave around the same time as we will be leaving on the ride itself, and to do approx half-distance by lunchtime. Hence we were very pleased to do 111 miles and still be back in time for lunch.

After the bad start yesterday, I was determined to get out on the bike again. Having spoken to Ciaran and Paul, I had a 6am start option with Ciaran for a "quick fifty" (as he described it) or an 11am start with Paul for a similar distance.

I opted for the early start so Jules & I could have the rest of the day enjoying the fastastic weather we're having.

Ciarans route is very similar to the 50 we did last Sunday afternoon except it goes slightly north of Bentley and on up to Crondall, then back through Farnham to the A31 and along the Hogs back home.

Again we set out at a good pace. I was feeling so much better today (thank goodness!). I was zipping up the hills on the long slog from Milford to Haslemere through Grayswood, and my heart rate stayed nice in the 160s.

Between Liphook & Bentley we were cycling into a headwind which slowed us down a bit, and we made our first stop just north of Bentley. The scenery around there is just wonderful, and today I was in more of a mood to enjoy it!

We got home after 2:55 in the saddle, and only then did I realise why Ciaran's "quick fifty" is so quick: it's only 47 miles long!!!

Still; a good time for a hilly route & into the wind for a good portion. I think I deserve the rest of the day off!!

No more alcohol

On Thursday night we had a work function, and I decided it would be nice to have a few beers. BIG MISTAKE! I didn't have loads of beer; probably 4 pints of Guinness. I got home in relatively good time, slept well, and didn't feel too bad the next day. Little did I know I was going to regret drinking that much on my next ride.

During the day on Friday I emailed Ciaran, Simon & Paul to see what they had planned for this weekend. Turned out Simon was planning to cycle to the Cotswolds, so the rest of us decided to join him for the first 50 miles or so, then turn back.

We set off at 6am, but the forecast was good, so I only had a single layer on. It was quite cold to start with, and I was pleased that we began the route with a climb up the Farnham road out of Guildford onto the Hogs back. Once on the Hogs back, we set off at a cracking pace and before long we were in Farnham. I'd noticed it being a bit hard work along the Hogs back, but put it down to the speed we were going which was much faster than normal. However, as we climbed up the past Hale and towards Odiham, I noticed my heart was pounding away much faster than normal. I was taking it fairly easy on the hills (because of the heart rate), but still my heart was going at 185. Then, even worse, at the top, where my heart rate usually quickly recovers to 130-140 or so, it stayed at 160.

This was fine for a little while, but after a few more hills I was exhausted. We were still managing a fairly good pace, and north of Odiham we went through Basingstoke, Newbury and on up to Wantage. By this point we'd been going pretty much non-stop for 3.5 hours and had just under 60 miles under our belt.

For the last 10-15 miles of this, I had not been enjoying it at all. The scenery was fantastic, the weather was good, the roads were quiet, but I felt rubbish.

When we stopped, I said I needed a bit of a rest. I was even thinking of just getting on the train home.

After 15 minutes or so, a short snack, a good drink and a little lie down, I made myself set off again. Ciaran, Paul & I setting of in one direction and Simon the other.

From where we stopped the road was a little undulating, but generally down hill for a few miles. I found myself at the front, and decided to try and set a good pace. Suddenly Fraser came into my mind (as he has done on a couple of times when I've felt low during training), and I had a little cry.

Next time we came to an uphill, I felt much better. My heart was more normal (160-170), and recovered quickly afterwards. So I much more enjoyed the route back through Reading, Wokingham & Bracknell. By the time we got home, we'd done 111 miles in 6.5 hours cycling which we were quite pleased with. The whole ride took a little longer than we planned due to the longish stop at Wantage, but I was so glad I pushed myself to do the rest of the ride.

I can only think my body was still processing the alcohol or something, but lesson learnt! No more til after the ride.

Sore Bums!

So much for a good nights sleep. The thing about a long bike ride is that you sweat. Therefore you spend a lot of time taking on liquid to make sure you dont get dehydrated. On the ride yesterday and after I got home, I drank just under 5 litres of liquid (a combination of carbohydrate drinks, protein drinks & electrolytic drinks). Unfortunately if you dont get the timing right, and sweat off all the extra liquid you've taken on board, your body has to get rid of it some other way.

Therefore I did not get the good night sleep I had hoped for!

Joining John & Tim for breakfast, I was complaining about my bum. It felt uncomfortable enough to share my discomfort with some other guys - you know? Anyway John piped up that he thought it might have something to do with the saddles, which Tim & I found most insightful.

Simon had fixed his tyre, so the 7 of us were up, breakfasted and ready to go by 7am. Just before setting off Henry stated that his bum was so sore that it felt like he had been violated in his sleep.

We spent some time trying to decide which of Henry & John's observations were the funniest.

The good news was that as soon as we set off, I realised that in fact the pain in my bum was not as bad as all that. Nope - it was much worse when I sat back on the saddle!

We did my 60 mile loop over the 5 mile ascent between Borden & Hindhead. On the way up that hill, after about 40 miles, Henry's knee started to get very painful & Ciaran's rear sprocket broke hence they both had to drop out of the training ride. Hopefully Henry's knee is just because he did such a big jump yesterday in terms of his longest ride.

Back at the house again, we stopped for some sandwiches & a drink. If it was hard first thing this morning to get going again after 150 miles yesterday, it was even harder to get going again this afternoon having done that PLUS 60 miles this morning already!!

Still, set off we did, and we completed the final 50 in 3 hours which was pretty good. This time Ciaran & Jules followed us around for much of the route in a car to get some more photos.

250 miles this weekend. The longest I've ever done, and the most I will do prior to the ride itself.

Yikes.

Final team training ride - day 1

Up until this weekend, there has always seemed to be a long way to go and a lot of training to do efore the main event. Suddenly this no longer seems the case. John & Tim both stayed the weekend for this ride, and when we said goodbye on Sunday having cycled 250 miles we realised the next time we'd see each other would be on the race itself.

Indeed there are only 3 weekends left before the ride after this team training ride, and one of those is supposed to be a rest weekend. So I guess we are about as ready as we are going to be!!

John & Tim arrived late on Friday night. All of us had had a busy week, and all were ready to get a good nights sleep in time for the ride on Saturday morning.

7 of of the 8 riders had made it this weekend (Rich is on holiday). At 7am we all set off on the Guildford-Brighton-Portsmouth-Guildford route we've done in the past.

In Brighton we cycled along the sea-front on the brilliant cycle-lane. Tim somehow managed to hit a glass beer bottle despite many calls of "bottle" from riders in front of him. Luckily he did not get a puncture & we all complimented him on his steering abilities.

After 90 miles and 5 hours in the saddle, we arrived at The George pub in Cosham, just outside Portsmouth. We were met there by Jules and spent an hour eating a hearty meal and taking team photos. We were all feeling pretty good, although the drunk guy in the pub managed to upset Jules by giving her a hard time about how much money was going to charity and how much was going to us. Having put him straight (by the way, we are essentially funding it out of our own pockets, so all proceeds go directly to CHASE; indeed everything on the JustGiving website has already gone to them). We left him a card with the website address on it, so hopefully by now he has read the site and decided to sponsor us!!

After lunch, Jules joined us for some of the route again taking photos of us, but this time on the road. It kind of worked well as a practice for the support vehicles on the ride itself. We met up with her a few times up until Wickham, then the route got a bit complicated, so we next saw her just outside Arlesford. Here she produced cakes & nuts & bananas which were a much welcomed change to the energy bars!!

Just after this stop, we noticed Simons rear tyre had a strange kink in it causing vibration to his back wheel. We all agreed it didn't look healthy, but having no spare tyres with us we pressed on. After 130 miles, Simon's tyre finally gave up with a pop that sounded like a gunshot. Unfortunately this meant he missed the last 20 miles or so which he would regret the following day.

After our fall a couple of weeks ago, Paul & I were keen to avoid the Hogs back, so we got off the A31 at Runfold & rode parallel to it through quaint little villages.

We finally arrived back after 8.5 hours in the saddle and with 145 miles under our belt. We all felt great. Henry had beaten his longest ride by 50 miles, and John's knee was fine.

In the evening, Simon had invited us all round for dinner. This was a great opportunity to discuss the logistics of the event itself & raise any concerns people have. Richard (and his wife Debbie who must have been bored silly) and Jules joined the riders for many bowl-fuls of pasta & sauce.

Should sleep well tonight!

Happy Birthday little chap

Today would have been Frasers 3rd birthday.

I knew it was going to be a hard weekend for Jules, so I only planned to do a few 50 milers early in the morning so we could spend some time together for the rest of the weekend.

However when I woke up on Friday morning I was really missing him. I've had very few bad days at work in my 10 years at my company; but Friday was one of them. Seemed like all my projects needed attention (which is fine, and is just my job), but it was one of those days where it would have been nice if things had been quieter. I almost took the day off, but I knew it was going to be one of those days from the emails & voicemails I'd had from Thursday. Ah well.

I managed to leave work pretty sharp, and by that time had decided I was not going to cycle at all this weekend.

Jules and I have had a lovely weekend sorting through the many fantastic photos we've got of Fraser: Fraser even sent us some nice miserable bank-holiday weather so we didn't feel bad about staying in the house all weekend!! Thanks little fella!!

Zero miles this week, but feeling good for it!

Training ride 4 (Day 3) - oh dear

I couldn't fix my gear problems last night, so arranged to pop round to Simon this morning to see if he could figure it out.

We figured my derailleur was probably bent, and I decided to take it to Beyond Mountain Bikes for them to take a look.

The guy at Beyond quickly confirmed our suspicions, and also straightened the gearshift, checked the wheels & brakes & generally gave the bike a quick once-over.

By the time this was all done, I wasn't really in the mood to get back on the bike, so Jules and I spent the afternoon gadding about doing nothing in particular which was very enjoyable!!

Training ride 4 (Day 2) - dropping like flies

Having rested his knee as much as he could overnight, John was still in pain this morning. He took the bike out for a quick ride, but decided it would not be a good idea to accompany us today.

Rich, Paul & Simon all showed up for the 7am start, but Simon had some problems of his own related to some friction between part of his body and his saddle. Hopefully this is sufficient detail for you to imagine why Simon was not comfortable joining us today.

So then there were three.

Paul, Rich and I set off on the same 145 mile route that Paul and I had done a couple of weeks ago; Guildford-Brighton-Portsmouth-Arlesford-Guildford.

We set off at a cracking pace. Taking it in turns to go up front for 5 miles each, we were soon zipping along the coast from Brighton to Worthing. It took us 2 hours 50 minutes to do the first 50 miles, where we happened to cycle past Rich's grandad, so we popped in to say "hi" and have an energy bar.

Next stop was at just under 90 miles just outside Portsmouth where we stopped at a pub for some lunch. This had taken us 5 hours exactly, and we were ready for a break and some proper food.

I dont really want to dwell on the length of our lunch stop (see previous posting), but we stopped for about 1 hour. There was a great atmosphere in the pub, as everyone was ramping up for the FA cup final in which Portsmouth were playing.

Feeling refreshed (and somewhat full) we got back on the bikes for the home run.

From Portsmouth the route heads North-North-West up to Arlesford and then turns North-East up the A31. For the first section of this part of the ride, we realised that the "easterly" wind was actually a "north-easterly", and the going got considerably tougher with the last 30 mile stretch to look forward to entirely into the wind.

We still made pretty good time considering the hills, and we joined the A31 after 110 miles and 6.5 hours of cycling (ignoring the 1 hour break).

Pretty much as soon as we join the A31, there is a big climb from Arlesford to Four Marks. This was hard work and directly into the wind; it took us 30 minutes to go that 5 miles.

However, we knew that at the top of that climb it was a fairly easy and largely downhill run for the rest of the way home. Unfortunately at the top of the hill it started to rain, and suddenly got quite cold. Hence the next few miles were a real drag, and we just put our heads down and watched the back wheel of the guy in front (we were still taking it in turns to do 5 mile stints up front).

At Farnham there is a large junction called the "Shepherd and Flock" roundabout, and just after that the road starts to climb up the "Hogs Back". At this point Paul was up front, with Rich and I drafting close behind him. Suddenly Paul was on the floor, and Rich and I had both crashed into him; all of us lying on the inside carriageway of the A31 - not a nice place to be. Just at that point there is metal expansion bar where the A31 crosses a bridge, and it is at a horrible angle for cyclists. Paul's front wheel had caught in the gap & just slipped away from him because of the rain.

We got off the road as quickly as you can imagine we would, and shook ourselves down. Thankfully no-one was hurt too badly, but Paul and I both damaged our bikes. I could not get any of my bottom three gears, and hence hills were a struggle, also my gearshift had bent round at a strange angle. Looks like I wont by cycling tomorrow.

The last 8 miles or so were done at a very sedate pace while we allowed the adrenalin to work its way out of our system. We finally did the 145 miles in exactly the same time as Paul and I had done a few weeks previously; 8 hours and 45 minutes.

Lovely Jules had cooked me a roast chicken which I eagerly devoured after a good soak in the bath!!

Training ride 4 (Day 1) - complicated meeting up

Training ride 4 did not start well.

Initially it looked as though we would have between 6 and 8 of the team, but first Henry then Ciaran then Tim decided they would not be able to make it due to one thing or another. Of the remaining 5, only 3 of us could make the full 3 days we planned to do; Paul could make Friday and Saturday and Rich could make Saturday and Sunday.

Since John was coming down from Hertfordshire, Paul, Simon and I decided to cycle up and meet him half-way so he could cycle back with us and join us for the ride on Saturday. We decided to set off at 9:30am aiming to meet up near Amersham/Chesham around midday.

When Rich heard of our plans, he decided he could join us after all, at least for the morning, and since he lives near where our intended meeting up point was, we decided to meet at his house.

So Rich set out at 7am to cycle to John's house, and Paul, Simon and I set out at 9:30am to cycle to Rich's. Rich & John met up at 9:30, and then cycled back from Johns to Rich's, where we all met up. Keeping up?

Hence, having cycled just over 45 miles, we stopped for a snack & a cup of tea at Rich's house, and then set off back to Guildford.

There has been some debate within the team about the length of lunchstops on the ride itself (some want to minimise them to 20 minutes or so so we get there faster & can rest more in the evening, and others think we should allow 60 minutes to allow us to rest, feed & digest properly en-route). It was interesting to observe therefore that we stopped for around 55 minutes; especially as we were at Rich's house, and Rich was towards the 20 minute end of the spectrum! It was also observed that one reason our stop was as long as it was was because we were waiting for Simon to complete a business phone-call: Simon was more towards the 60 minute end...

Anyway, far be it from me to stir up tensions within the team, so probably best not mention the length of our lunchstop if you happen to talk to anyone on the team....

After another 20 miles or so we stopped for an energy bar and took a look at John's chain which had been making some clicking noises. It looked as though one of the links was almost sheared, and we decided we needed to go back via a bike shop to get it looked at before the big ride tomorrow.

After about 80 miles John's knee (which had been niggling all day) began to get extremely painful. So the last 10 miles to the bike shop we had phoned were not at all comfortable for him. The good news was though that having been to the bike shop, they told him that the chain, front socket & rear socket were all "completely b*ll*x*ed". They did a temporary fix so he could do the ride tomorrow, but that it would need a proper repair. When they told him what this would cost, John got a good hour or so respite from his knee.

On returning to Guildford we were greeted by Val & Belle who had volunteered to help us with some stretches after our ride and cake cooked by Gilly. What a FANTASTIC way to finish a bike ride. The shoulder and leg stiffness that normally coincides with finishing a long ride were noticably improved by Val & Belle's attention, and the cake was delicious!! Thanks to them all!!

By this time, John's knee was sore again (or rather he had got used to the idea of the work necessary to his bike and noticed his knee again), and he had a long soak in the bath. Not looking good for a ride tomorrow.

56 Miler Part 3

I had to do it again! Maybe if I really push I could break the 3 hours, but at least I could try out the 'shadow rider' feature on the Garmin.

I must admit, it was hard going to start with and I found the Garmin a bit confusing to start with. I knew I was either ahead or behind, but it was not immediately apparent which. The funny thing was that, on the assumption that I was behind, it kind of motivated me to push harder. This made me more tired, and the gap between the two got bigger. I became more and more paranoid that I was dropping futher and further behind!!

By the time I got to the long 5 mile hill, I gave up worrying about it, and just pushed as hard as I dared whilst making sure I had enough energy to get home again.

It was only when I got home, and the Garmin beeped a little congratulatory tune at me to tell me I had beaten my Friday time by 5 minutes.

168 miles over the weekend, all at an average speed well over 17 mph! Not bad for a quiet weekend!

56 Miler Part 2

Paul was up for a ride this morning, so I thought I'd repeat the route I did yesterday.

Dont tell Paul that I told you this, but he's fitter than I am. Hence I was secretly quite pleased to have him drafting behind me for once. It made a nice change!!

I thought we would go quicker as a pair (in fact, I was hoping we could do it in less than 3 hours), but for some reason it took a few minutes longer. Makes me realise how hard I was pushing to get back in time for Jules yesterday!!

It was only around half way around that I remembered the Garmin has a 'shadow rider' feaure where you can effectively race yourself if you are doing the same route. Maybe I'll have to try again tomorrow!

Anyhow, pleased with progress; two 56 mile rides averaging over 17 mph.

56 Miler Part 1

I decided to take it easy this weekend, as I did a good distance last weekend, and wanted to give my body a bit of a break. Having said that, I was at a wedding on Friday afternoon, so I thought a quick 50 miler might be in order!

Once again the 2 G's (Google & Garmin) came up trumps, and I found a nice route of 56 miles down the A31 to Alton, then up to Hindhead and Haslemere and across to the A283 and back to Guildford.

I wasn't paying attention when I planned the route, and so didn't notice that I couldn't get off the A31 where I wanted to, and hence the route ended up being a bit longer than planned.

I'd promised Jules I'd be back by 10, and set off just before 7am. It was busy - Friday morning rush hour, but I made good time and was searching for the way off the A31 after an hour.

Then travelling from Borden to Hindhead I found a fantastic hill. It wasn't too steep, but it went on for about 5 miles. Must show it to Paul tomorrow!

By 9am I was in Haslemere and wondering how on earth I was going to get back to Guildford by 10am. I pushed on hard, and surprised myself when I got back in just after 10. 56 miles in about 3 hours 10 minutes!

Send May Fayre

Tracy had organized a stand at Send May Fayre today. She had lots of friends bake cakes, and also had contacted a load of local companies to donate prizes for a raffle. Part of the attraction (not sure if that is the right word...) was that Paul & I had to spend all afternoon on the turbos in front of the stand.

I have to say that the stand looked great. The 4 hour turbo session went by pretty quickly because there was always something going on or someone to chat to.

We didn't go that quickly, but then it was quite hot, and we needed to be able to talk to people. Hence we kept our heart rates at 130-140 for 4 hours. I dont think we sweated too much. We did around 45 miles according to the Garmin - although I doubt it's accuracy on a static turbo.

At the end of the day, we had raised over £300 - well done Tracy!!! And of course Paul & I both completed our longest turbo session!

My longest ride yet

Following a week of not quite getting around to doing much training (at least, after my ride on Monday), I was keen to get out for a ride again this weekend.

Paul had suggested we go for a longer ride, and Ciaran and Simon were going to join us for part of it. I google-mapped a route from Guildford to Brighton, along the coast to Portsmouth, and then back up the A31 to Guildford again. This looked like it would be something between 140 and 150 miles, and offered Simon and Ciaran the option of turning back to Guildford at Worthing or Chichester depending on how time was going.

Paul, Simon & I set off around 7:30am; Ciaran couldn't make it.

It was a slightly different route to Brighton than our previous ride. This time we went over "Devil's Dyke" instead of "Ditchling Beacon". We had some debate over which was worse. Ditchling goes from 130ft to 750ft in a mile. Devil's Dyke goes from sea level to 170ft in 3 miles, then down to 120ft and back up to 460ft in 2 miles then down to 320ft to 460ft in a mile; a total climb of 670ft spread over 8 miles. I still say Ditchling is harder, but Devil's Dyke definitely took longer!

After that it was a nice cruise down into Brighton where we (ok...Simon) found a cafe which served sausage sarnies & cups of tea. We convinced ourselves this was the right thing to do, and sat down enjoying the summer breeze from the seafront.

Refreshed, we set off with the wind behind us along the coast towards Portsmouth. Going through Arundel we were reminded it was the bank holiday weekend by the amount of traffic. I'm sure our journey was quicker than many of the people sitting in that queue!

Between Arundel & Chichester, Simon turned of towards home and Paul and I continued towards Portsmouth.

Just outside Portsmouth, we turned off towards Wickham for a nice bit of cross-country riding out of the traffic. This was really enjoyable, although we lost our way a couple of times because I had not put enough way-points into the Garmin. This didn't really matter though, and we made our way through the country lanes eventually ending up at Arlesford.

Now on familiar ground, we upped the pace a bit for the homeward leg of the journey. We lost about 20 minutes because I got a puncture between Four Marks and Alton, but other than that we are well-used to the A31 and it is good fast easy-going. Having said that, the up-hills were getting harder and harder the more miles we did, so I was extremely glad to get home.

This was my longest ride yet at 145 miles and we did it in a good time of 8 hours 45 minutes!! Rest day tomorrow!

Surrey Hills

Having conquered Shap, I was inspired to do some more hills. So I set out for another 50 mile trek across the hills near my home.

I actually ended up doing more ascent & descent than I had in the Lake District, but the hills were much smaller!!

The Dreaded Shap

I had offered to help my mum clear out my great aunt's flat in Blackpool on Saturday. Hence I took Friday & Monday off in order to get some miles in while I was up there.

Friday morning was spent at an appointment at the bank (I closed my accounts after 22 years!). Thankfully the lady that saw me handled the situation very well, and quite understood my reasons for moving, so the meeting was less stressful than I had feared.

Then we set off for Blackpool. We made good progress up the M42, but around junction 11 of the M6, things started to slow down a bit. I managed to get off the motorway, and was very soon glad that I had, because they had closed it due to a nasty accident. Everywhere anywhere near the motorway was complete mayhem. Consequently it took us over 7 hours to get there and I did not get time for my planned evening bike ride.

Saturday was spent clearing the flat, then Jules & I headed up to the Lake District so I could see what the infamous Shap was going to be like.

We were only able to get accommodation in a village called Glenridding, and I planned a 50 mile route from there to Shap via Windermere and Kendal and on to Penrith.

I set off at 5:30 so I had a chance to get back to the hotel before they stopped serving breakfast.

What I hadn't really thought through was that I had to go over Kirkstone pass to get from Glenridding to Windermere. This involved a 1000ft climb in 3 miles (Leith hill is about 500ft over the same distance by comparison).

The Garmin came into its own again to get me cross country from Windermere to the A6 just north of Kendal avoiding the main road. Then I started my ascent of Shap.

I have to confess that after Kirkstone pass it was a bit of a disappointment. Admittedly it is a 10 mile uphill climb, but only 700ft, so more gradual than Boxhill. I can see its going to be a bit demoralising, because you think you've hit the top, and it just gets steeper. Then when you do get to the top, there is a sign that says "Shap 2 miles", which makes you think you're still not there, but Shap itself is just a village a couple of miles beyond the summit.

Still - I know what I'm letting myself in for now.....and I'm sure after the 100 or so miles I'll have done before it on the race itself, it will seem much much worse!

Effingham once again

Did my usual plan to ride on Tuesday night, but worked too late. However, this week (feeling tired from working late) I did not go out on Wednesday morning instead, but waited til the evening.

Felt strong...probably after the long ride this weekend. So got all the way to the traffic lights in Effingham and back in just over 50 minutes (16.5 miles).

Quite pleased with myself.

Training ride 3 (Day2) : Chesham

Ciaran, Simon and I set off at 6am on Sunday to meet Paul on the way up to Windsor. Plan was to meet Rich on the normal loop to the west of Windsor. Paul managed to get another puncture in almos exactly the same place as last time we met up there - he really hasn't had much luck recently. Still, at least his cycling shorts weren't foaming: that would be very embarrasing.

We met up with Rich easily enough, and then he took us on a tour of Berkshire & Buckinghamshire ending up near his house in Chesham.

At around 9am, Simon mentioned the idea of a bacon sandwich. How completely unfair. I dont remember much about the rest of the ride, so focussed was I on getting home to have a bacon butty!!!

Ok - I remember some of it. Rich took us over some of his favourite hills. They weren't really what we call hills in Surrey, but they at least kept us warm!! Once we got to Chesham, we turned around and headed home.

Again I am struck with how much I have progressed, because when we arrived at Windsor on the way back I remember thinking "nearly home"; where we still had 25 miles to do. I can't help thinking back to December and our first 22 mile training ride and how far that seemed!!

Anyway, we got home having done almost 90 miles after 6 hours. So that makes almost 200 miles in a weekend; 13 hours in the saddle; and the knowledge that I can actually cycle that far in that time - just need to be able to do it in one day now.

Training ride 3 (Day 1) : Brighton

I didn't get a chance to train again prior to the training ride on Saturday. Actually thats not strictly true - I could have done some training on Friday morning, but decided it would be prudent to conserve my strength for the weekend.

This training ride would not see the full-compliment of riders; Henry was busy in a rowing event, and Tim & John are both injured/ill. Also, Rich could only make Sunday.

However, on Saturday morning the remaining four set of from Guildford for Brighton. The weather was miserable, but the good news was it was miserable everywhere we went. It would have been really disappointing to hear that we had had a ride in a particular area only to find that the weather was much better somewhere else, but it really didn't seem to matter where we went, there was a constant damp demoralising drizzle. I have shamelessly used alliteration there so I can now mention my foaming friend Paul. After a couple of hours in the damp demoralising drizzle, foam flowed from friends cycling shorts!!! None of us could work out why (nor did we really want to think too hard about it), but plenty of theories were put forward. It was a great way to pass the time, and before we knew it we were in a place called Ditchling.

For those of you who have ever cycled the London to Brighton ride, the word "Ditchling" will probably be giving you some bad memories. Ditchling beacon is a hill which cuts Brighton off from the rest of the country. The one time I did London to Brighton, I had to walk a part of Ditchling, and I was actually quite looking forward to seeing if I could get up it after all this training! Ditchling is the third highest peak in the South Downs at 814ft, and the route we took rises 550ft in around 1 mile. It was (surprisingly) easier than I thought it was going to be; Leith Hill is harder....

In Brighton, we took the cycle lanes along the sea-front headed towards Worthing. It has to be said at this point that the cycle lanes are fantastic in Brighton. Unlike the ones in Guildford, the Brighton ones seem to be designed for people that are on bikes. This ought to be a design requirement for all cycle lanes.

Here we were lucky with the weather, as the wind was coming from the East, so we went quite
quickly across to Chichester. Then we turned up the A285 back to Guildford. This required us to go over Duncton Hill in the opposite direction to what we had done previously.

We were travelling a little slower than normal, but still managed nearly 110 miles in 7 hours which is not too bad. My first time properly over 100, and I felt strong afterwards.

Early start again

This is starting to become a habit. Plan to ride Tuesday night. Something comes up at work, end up going out on Wednesday morning. Not helped by the fact that for the last couple of weeks I've had a social on Wednesday evening, hence long days & tiredness!

Managed my Effingham route easily enough, and headed into work nice and early to make sure last nights excitment had settled down. Unfortunately for the first time in ages, South West Trains let me down, so I ended up getting in at 9am just in time for my first meeting.

Tonight I was out with my friend Robin who doesn't seem to be comfortable with the idea of me not drinking very much!!! Good to see him though, and decent food at Browns near Bank station.

Since my posting on the weekend, I've got the details of John & Tims ride. Wow! 150+ miles on Saturday followed by nearly 80 on Sunday. Good effort....especially compared to my 140 mile total for the whole weekend. I haven't read John's blog yet, but I assume he will have mentioned he fell off his bike at Sheffield and hurt his leg. His wheel got caught in tramlines and he ended up travelling in a different direction to his bike. Ouch.

In adding labels for this post, I noticed that I haven't used the "green poo" label a 2nd time yet, so this is a blatent mention just so I have more than one. There really is no reason for adding it here except that I know more people are reading the blog now, so may be tempted to explore a little.

London bound

Today was the London marathon, and Jules had volunteered to help the CHASE support team look after the 50 or so people who were running in support of CHASE. Hence I had the whole day to go out on the bike! (although I had promised to get back by 2pm to do a few things around the house).

Paul & Simon both said they could come along for a while, and we all met up at 7am. Paul had to be home by 10am, so we thought we'd gad about a bit on the hills around Dorking again. We were a little late setting off, and Paul had yet another puncture just outside Guildford. By the time we'd fixed that and got going again, it was 8 o'clock already and we'd only done about 3 miles!!

Simon showed us a less steep route up Ranmore, which was a really nice climb. Then we went down via West Humble towards Boxhill.

Paul & I were much faster up Boxhill this week than last time we did it, and we stopped at the top for a quick snack & a drink. We then took a lovely route off Boxhill, again guided by Simon, and found ourselves at the base of Boxhill where we'd started.

At this point, Paul & I went ahead, and returned up Ranmore the same way we had come down.

At East Horsley, Paul had to head home & I was on my own. My plan was to cycle in towards London. I had a route planned, and was keen to try it out. It went from East Horsley to Cobham, and then past Claygate towards Esher & Kingston. I made good time, but by the time I'd got to Claygate it was pouring with rain. I carried on to Kingston but by then I was soaked & quite cold, and I decided to head back towards Guildford.

It was a good decision, because the storm was travelling west to east and I was soon out of the rain. Back at East Horsley, time was ticking on, so I decided to go home.

Another 70 miler, although a lot slower than yesterdays!!

Back to Windsor

Rich & Paul had planned a long ride for Saturday, so I decided to join them for the first 50 miles or so.

I wanted to be back around 10am, as Jules is helping the CHASE support team at the London Marathon tomorrow, so we wont get to spend much time this weekend otherwise.

Paul wanted to set of at 6am, so I headed out at 5:30 so I could get to his house by then. Finally I get the extra bonus miles before we meet!!

Once there, we quickly set out for Windsor & Rich's infamous 'loop' just to the west. We made pretty good time really, although Paul got another puncture next to Windsor Great Park which lost us a bit of time.

We managed to miss Rich somehow on his loop, but met him back at Fifield just up the road from where Paul had his puncture.

Although we had made good time getting up there, Rich set off at a much faster pace, and before we knew it we were almost back at Woking. Rich had a route in mind, and took us off to Pyrford and then on to East Horsley where I peeled off home, as time was getting on.

By the time I'd got home I'd done almost 70 miles by 10:15 in the morning!

Taxi!

I was out on wednesday night at a work do.....a table-football competition. It was great fun, and I was surprised I stayed awake after my early morning bike-ride. I was drawn on the same team as a colleague of mine, Lindsey, and we did really well thanks to her unnatural ability in goal, and my flukey diagonal shots.

Anyhow, so I was tired on Thursday morning, and indeed Thursday evening, so decided to get an early night & go for a ride Friday morning.

At 3:10am, our front-doorbell rang & a nice man informed us that our taxi had arrived.

Unfortunately we hadn't ordered a taxi, and it took quite some negiation to convince him of this fact.

This meant I slept through my alarm & missed my ride today...

:-(

A new light

After my ride on Sunday, I popped in to Beyond Mountain bikes to buy some more energy drinks & some recovery drink of my own (I got to feeling guilty about taking Ciarans all the time, and in any case his is beyond its sell by date!). While I was there I decided to buy myself a new front light....one that I can see by and not just be seen by.

I had planned to ride/turbo on Tuesday night, but ended up working late, so decided to go out before work on Wednesday. The new light makes a huge difference, and I managed to get all the way to the traffic lights in Effingham & return home within an hour.

I was quite pleased with this ride because once I was out of Guildford, I pretty much only used 2 gears all the way to Effingham and back, AND I was on the big cog at the front. My legs are certainly getting stronger than they were a few weeks ago!

Apologies to the weathermen

I got up at six and looked out of the window. The weathermen had said there would be snow overnight and lots of it, but when I looked there was none. Indeed it was quite mild, and dry outside.

Hence I decided to set off down the A31 to get some more miles in.

At the bottom of the Farnham road on my way up to the Hogs Back, it started to drizzle, and by the top of the hill, it was kind of sleet. I still didn't worry too much, as it seemed way too mild to settle. On the open road, I started pushing a bit harder on the big cog, and the sleet started to hurt my face. 6 miles out of Guildford, I was suddenly surrounded by snow, and it was an inch thick on the ground. Quite bizarre. If I hadn't seen it I would not have believed the sudden change in weather. I figured I'd better head home.

Having walked across the Hogs Back, my cleats had all frozen up with packed snow, and I was busy trying to sort that out when some kind guy stopped and offered me a lift. He was a time-trialler who had also decided today was not the day for cycling. I thanked him for the offer, but decided I was only 6 miles from home, so I'd push on. If you're that guy and you happen to be reading this, THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE OFFER! (I wish I'd taken it).

I pushed pretty hard to get home, and figured that as long as I made it to the top of the Farnham road, I could coast down into Guildford and I'd be fine. I finally made it to the top of the hill and started my free-wheel down. After not very far, and having skidded on a yellow line hidden by snow, I decided I was going too quickly. That was when I realised my brakes had frozen up with packed up snow, so I stopped the bike my skidding my feet on the ground. For a few seconds, I really thought I was not going to stop without falling off.

Anyhow, long story short - here is a picture of me as I returned home....

Back to Chichester

John cycled down from Bishops Stortford to Guildford yesterday afternoon. He did really well, as it's 80+ miles and he was by himself.

He stayed with us on Friday night and then Paul joined us on Saturday so the three of us could cycle to Worthing via Chichester. John only wanted to go to Worthing where he was visiting family. I say "only", but Guildford to Worthing via Chichester is around 50 miles which is quite impressive the morning after an 80 mile bike ride the previous afternoon! Then Paul and I would head home, hopefully ending up between 90-100 miles.


View Larger Map

We set off around 6:45 after a breakfast and juice. We travelled down past CHASE and out towards Godalming then Haslemere. I dont recall cycling south on this road before. There were some great hills!! (although "great" wasn't a word I heard John using!). After 30 miles or so we stopped for 2nd breakfast at Singleton. I must have driven through it many times, but had never realised what a beautiful little village Singleton is.

I had Google'd a route into the Garmin around the back of Goodwood racecourse to avoid having to go through Chichester centre. Once again, I was really pleased with the Garmin under these circumstances. It was not an obvious route, and certainly not one that any of us had done before, but we found our way down to the A27 without incident. Then it was just a case of blasting along the A27 for 20 miles until we hit Worthing. This part of the trip was very quick due to the road being pretty flat.

At Worthing, about 1/2 mile from where we were dropping John off, we noticed Paul had a puncture. So we stopped and changed his tube and said farewell to John.

Paul and I were feeling great. 50 miles already, and we were doing fine. Just outside Worthing, coming up the A24, there is quite a long hill and we realised why we were feeling so good; the wind had been behind us on the way down!! It was tough going, and it took us pretty much the same amount of time to go 40 miles home as it did to go 50 miles down there! Although part of that was due to Paul getting another puncture, and us stopping to pump his tyre up a few times and eventually changing the tube again at Cranleigh.

When we eventually got home, I felt the best I've felt after a ride of that distance. Maybe I'll manage a ride tomorrow, although the weather forecast predicts snow.

Morning Turbo with Mr Sugar

I had originally planned to train last night, but ended up working late again. Also, I was not feeling great, so I got an early night and a good nights sleep so I could get up early this morning to train before work.

Since the clocks changed again, it's too dark in the morning to go out on the road (must buy myself a proper light), so it was back on the turbo. I watched the iPlayer again, and Wednesdays episode of The Apprentice. Very entertaining.

Another 15 miles...

Turbo to Torchwood

Back on the turbo tonight. I watched another episode of Torchwood, which I'm getting quite into now. The first 50 minutes went quite quickly. I then watched the brilliant penguin April fools joke from the BBC.

Got my 15 miles in anyhow....

A second hundred

Paul, Ciaran and myself set off early this morning for a ride. Ciaran only wanted to be out for a little while as he feels a cold coming on. Paul and I were keen to do 100 miles again.

We met up at 6am & had a quick discussion about routes. We decided to do Paul's 50 mile circuit (the one we did on Monday) & take it from there. So off we set to Ranmore & Leith Hill again!

Breakfast stop in Cranleigh after 30 miles, and then we decided to head straight back to Guildford so Ciaran could get back. Paul and I then decided to do the same loop again, but this time taking in Boxhill too. The road up Boxhill is not too steep, but a nice long incline, so excellent training.

Anyhow, we ended up doing approx 100 miles (actually 97), having done Ranmore Common and Leith Hill twice plus Boxhill; that's over 2.5 km of ascent in total!

I felt pretty good afterwards (compared to the last time). I tried a recovery drink (essentially a protein milk shake) to see how it helped me.

Annoyingly, my battery died on the Garmin (because I forgot to charge it up!), but it stayed on long enough to catch my fastest speed so far coming down off Leith Hill the first time around. I did 43.4 mph!

Drizzle

Having Turbo'd on Wednesday, I figured I'd wait til this morning to get up early and get some miles in.

Alarm went off at 5am, and I was out on the road at 5:10. Just did my Guildford-Effingham-Guildford route (approx 15 miles), which took about 50 minutes.

Traffic was quieter this morning than the previous occasion. I hardly saw any cars at all.

I think a good summary of the ride would be 'drizzle'

Saved by the BBC iPlayer

Long weekends are great for getting some miles in and having a bit of a break, but they make the short weeks harder to do the miles in between.

Decided to have a break on Tuesday, so planned to do something today and Thursday.

Didn't have a good day on Tuesday. I think it was a combination of post-long-weekend-blues, plus I was thinking about Fraser a lot. Consequently, I didn't feel like getting up early this morning, so I got back on the turbo for the first time for a while.

I've watched all my Christmas DVDs now, so I thought I'd try out the BBC iPlayer. It was fantastic! I watched an episode of Torchwood and then a news bulletin. I was surprised how good the quality was, especially as I was using a wireless network, but the sound was completely uninterupted, and the picture only froze on the occasional frame - certainly not enough to become annoying. Well done BBC!!!

Did the full hour, and around 16 miles or so, and felt good afterwards.

Leith Hill is easy!

Leith Hill is easy
Leith Hill is easy
Leith Hill is easy
.....
if I keep telling myself, perhaps one day I'll believe it!

Paul and I went out for a 50+ miler this morning. We both left at 7am, and met up at Clandon. Paul has a good 50 mile circuit which takes in Ranmore Common and Leith Hill to warm up with for 20 miles, and then a 25 mile stretch of fairly flat road meandering around Cranleigh and finally 5 miles back to Guildford up Newlands Corner.

We made pretty good time really, 3 hours 20 minutes of cycling, so we were back by 10:30ish.

Paul was looking strong, so I drafted behind him for the last 20 miles. Certainly a lot easier going than it was on Friday!!

A posting from Jules

I just wanted to say that I now finally get it! Having been Iain's backup crew on the good friday and actually drove the route he did to liaise with him for a break - I realised just how far he had cycled - on pedal power, in tough conditions. I was really enjoying the drive in the sunshine, looking at all the little villages I had never visited, whilst in the comfort of my little mini, with heated seats and a choice of music on my ipod - avoiding the harsh wind and cold weather outside. After an hour or so driving my legs were getting a little tired and I could do with a bit of a stretch. Also I had watched the petrol guage gradually go down and thinking I would need to stop for petrol soon when it hit me - I can't believe he has done this far just on a bike. In fact, he had been doing distances like this for some weeks.

At home, when he sets off for a bike ride in the early hours I think to myself he is only going 65 or 80 miles today. Not far. Those two small numbers don't really mean much. I set about doing the one hundred and ten things I always have to do when he is away and don't really think about it.

Well I've well and truly woken up to the reality of these rides - they are far, really far and all I really wanted to say to all the lycra lads on Race for CHASE - is total respect. You are now doing a marathon every weekend virtually, especially in this tough weather. Keep going - you are all incredible.

Cycling to Stratford on Avon - am I mad?

We'd planned to go see my mum for Easter today (especially as my nephew Stewart will be there), so having Google-mapped a route & found it possible to cycle, I decided this would be a good training opportunity.

The route from Guildford goes via Bracknell, Henley, Wallingford, Oxford, Woodstock and Chipping Norton and is almost exactly 100 miles by the time I've tweaked it into the Garmin.

Ciaran called last night, and said he'd accompany me for the first few miles, and we set off at 7am. As normal, the weathermen got it wrong, and the piece about sleet/snow & cold temperatures was wrong, but they did get the wind right. Typically, my route heads straight into where the 23 mph wind is coming from. Hence it was slower going than I've been used to recently, but we did ok.

We stopped for Breakfast at Henley feeling great, although I noticed my tyre was flat so we fixed a puncture and set off again. Ciaran was kindly doing most of the work with the wind because he knew he had it behind him for the return trip, and I was drafting behind him.

Things got a bit slower as we climbed the Chilterns, as the wind picked up a bit or we were a bit more exposed to it. Either way, it was tough going at times. 10 miles from Oxford Ciaran decided he wanted to go all the way to Oxford because a) It would be great to be able to say he cycled to Oxford and back and b) he would make his first 100 miler of the year! This suited me just fine, and we clicked over 50 miles just before the ring-road at Oxford. We had a quick break and a snack, and then I noticed I had another puncture! I only had one spare tube, so we had to actually fix this one :-(

Because of the wind, it had taken us 3 hours 40 minutes to get here, and I new the next 50 miles would be harder without Ciaran as a wind-break.

Ciaran turned home and whizzed off with the wind behind him, and I set off with my head down towards the lovely ring-road at Oxford.

I got through Oxford fairly quickly (it's about 8 miles from where we stopped to the junction with the A44 and I did it in about 25 minutes). The shelter provided by the buildings meant that the wind was not as noticable, and the cycle-lanes through Oxford centre made the going very easy.

Jules had left the house around 10:30 with the plan to meet me after 60 miles or so. So I gave her a quick call to say I was on the A44, so she should not be able to miss me. I grabbed another quick snack & a drink, and put my head down again towards Woodstock. By now the wind had really picked up, and because the A44 is so exposed, the going was very tough. It took me 45 minutes to go 7 miles and I was really struggling. I was in my lowest gear and it felt like I could barely move. At one point I was litterly blown sideways off the road.

I was very glad when Jules finally caught me up, then immediately disheartened as she appeared to beep in a friendly way as she passed me as if to see "see you at mums" and then entirely relieved to see her waiting in the next layby!!!

As it turned out, we met up at a pub called the Duke of Malborough. It had just started to sleet, so I decided I'd had enough training for one day, and sat down for a hugh lasagne & chips and a pint of bitter lemon and soda-water.

Early morning start

After my experience on Tuesday evening, I decided to try going out first thing in the morning instead. Also, as I'm planning a long ride tomorrow, I did not really want to train this evening.

So, I got up at 5am & did my Effingham route as on Tuesday. This meant I was back at the house around the same time as I normally get up anyhow. I made sure I did the full 16 miles this time, and made it properly into Effingham. Also, because it was actually light, I did this extra distance in the same time as I did on Tuesday.

Jules had made me some breakfast & offered to drive me to the station, so after having a bike ride and some breakfast at home (neither of which I normally do in the morning), I ended up on an earlier train than I typically get.

This is going to be great - now its light enough and not icy in the mornings!

I checked the weather for my ride tomorrow though. Oh dear. Looks like its going to be tough. Sleet/snow, strong winds from the NW, and cold temperatures....

Need some better lights!

When I got home from work today, I just did not feel like sitting in the garage on the turbo. I decided therefore to go out on the road for a ride. I managed to go almost to Effingham and back in about 50 minutes (so almost 16 miles) which I was quite pleased with, but it was a bit scary as my front light is more a 'be seen' light than a 'see' one!!

It was fine unless there was any traffic coming towards me, which there was, most of the way....

Still, the time & the miles went much more quickly out on the highway than sat in the garage!

Training ride 2 : Winchester

There was much discussion about this training ride. Rich had come up with a plan which meant John & Tim could start out with him and meet up with the Guildford lot and head towards Bath. Meanwhile Henry would set out from Bath, and we would all meet up somewhere along the A4. It all sounded rather complicated, but in true Rich style, perfectly doable.

However Marg & Dave from the support team were coming down to meet us after the ride, so Tim & John decided to start from Guildford. Also Ciaran and Paul both needed to be back by a particular time, so we selected a route down the A31 to Winchester and back which would give us a bank of around 80 miles, then those of us that had time could do another 20 mile loop near Guildford.

Rich and Henry were unable to join us, so the team of six set of at 7am for the ride south to Winchester.

I was quite nervous. My last long ride, I had 'bonked', I hadn't trained properly for a couple of weeks, and memories of the strong head-winds last time I did the A31 would not go out of my head.

We set off at a cracking pace (once we'd got up the hill to the Hoggs Back), and were sticking together much better as a team than on the last ride.

At Four Marks (30 miles in) we stopped for a snack & quick rest. We decided that going all the way to Winchester was going to make time a bit tight for those needing to get home, so we planned to turn back at Arlesford instead.

On the way back Ciaran (of all people) started to struggle a bit. I got the sense that the rest of us have been doing well on our training, and he had not anticipated how quickly we'd be able to go by now. In some sick selfish way, I think this gave the team a bit of a morale boost. Everyone has confidence that Ciaran will be able to do the big ride, so if we were doing better than him, then maybe we would be able to do it too!!!

When we got to back to Farnham, we stopped to discuss how to get the miles in. We'd done 45 miles already, and Ciaran needed to get home. We decided to set back off down to Arlesford again, and then do a 10 mile loop when we got back to Guildford.

This time, we decided to try "chain ganging". This is where you take it in turns to go at the front of the line, and stay there for about 30 seconds. Once you're done, you pull out & ease off, and the rest of the pack overtakes on the inside, where you rejoin the line at the back. Using this technique, we piled the miles on, and soon found ourselves back at Four Marks (at 60 miles) having another snack (although we did lose 20 minutes or so because Simon got a puncture).

By the time we'd got back to Farnham, we'd done about 80 miles, so we peeled off the A31 towards Ash, Worpleston, Old Woking and Send. We dropped Paul of at his house, and at Clandon we hit our 100 mile target.

After the final 5 miles, we got home to a fantastic lunch prepared by Jules, Marg & Dave; proper support team training too!

I was really pleased to have survived this ride. Especially as we had our highest average speed so far of nearly 17 miles an hour. Previously it had been nearer 15.5 mph, although there were no real hills on this ride to slow us down and we were able to use "the BIG cog" for much of the ride.

Jetlag

We flew in on Monday morning from the "red-eye" flight. Scariest landing I've ever had, as we it was in the middle of the worst storm in a while in the UK. I seriously thought the tip of the wing was going to hit the ground first when we hit surbulence very near the ground on landing. It certainly felt like the left wheel hit the groud before the right one which is unnerving at the speed 777s land.

I went straight to the office, so was not planning to train on monday night, but to sleep instead!

The plan was to train on Tuesday and Thursday. However, because I'd been away in NY for a week, things had stacked up a bit back in London, so I got home quite late on Tuesday. Things had similarly stacked up at home too; post, messages & Race For CHASE admin to catch up on. Hence I didn't train Tuesday after all.

Finally on Wednesday I got back on the bike, albeit 'only' a turbo session, but it felt great. I only did an hour (or just under 20 miles) but it was good to start racking the miles up again.

Given we have a 100 mile training ride on Saturday, and feeling tired again on Thursday, I decided not to train. It's going to be interesting to see how my lack of training translates to a lack of performance on Saturday. I heard that many of the other riders have already clocked up their first hundred miler.

New York New York

This week I had to go to New York on a business trip. Decided it would be nice to take Jules with me & stay the weekend.

The hotel had a gym, so the plan was to do some training in the evenings, and then possibly hire a bike on the weekend and go for a ride. A colleague from New York kindly found me a route going from New York up the Hudson River to Bear Mountain (by coincidence his name is David Wright which is the same as John's dad, one of our support team!).

On arriving in New York, I dilligently went to the hotel gym on monday night after a 12 hour day in the office (its always busier than I remember it being in NY). Unfortunately there was not a proper cycling machine; I'd just kind of assumed any hotel gym would have one! However there was a reclining one so I used that. I only did 45 minutes, and the machine said I'd gone 10 miles which seemed about right.

The rest of the week got even busier at work, and I had started to feel a bit bad about leaving Jules for so long in the day and then disappear in the evening too. Hence I didn't make it to the gym again until Saturday, where I did a full hour and 16 miles.

By this point I had decided not to do the Bear Mountain ride. Jules has been out in NY with me before, but we've never really spent the weekend there together, so we focussed our energy instead on shopping and seeing the sights!!!

26 miles this week....not good.

A trip to the New Forest

We had been invited to visit our friends Richard and Kirsten in Milford On Sea for the weekend. I did the Google maps search, and found it is just over 70 miles from Guildford to Milford. I decided it would be a good challenge to cycle down on the Saturday and cycle back on the sunday.

I set off around 8am on Saturday, and had just joined the Hogs Back just outside Guildford when I cycled over some broken glass & slashed my front tyre and tube. Although I had a spare tube with me I hadn't really planned for losing a tyre. I called Jules, and she quickly came to my rescue with a spare tyre, tube & race pump. It was around 9am by the time I'd called Jules, she'd found the stuff, come out to meet me and I'd fitted the new tyre.

Based on my previous 70 mile rides, I'd planned on 4.5 - 5 hours, and we were aiming to be there for lunch around 1pm; I was going to be late!

Next I learnt why we are cycling from Land's End to John O'Groats (and not the other direction). People had told me it is because the wind generally blows from the south west, but I'd always thought this cant be that significant. How wrong I was! The wind was in my face all the way down and it was really hard work. I managed to keep a fair speed up, but it was a real struggle; my heart rate seemed my higher that normal, but my speed was slower. I eventually got there at 1:45 after over 5 hours of cycling. Tired and hungry and not looking forward to the return trip.

On arrival I told Richard I had now done around 850 miles on my bike since buying it at the end of December. I was quite pleased with this til he pointed out that I need to be able to do that distance in a week in June. :-(

We had a lovely afternoon with our hosts and the kids, and delicious food. I managed to stay awake and chat as long as the others did, but eventually had to suggest bed (most unlike me to be the first to suggest this).

I was up first this morning. Joseph (Richard and Kirsten's oldest) had serenaded us with his trumpet skills over breakfast, and then dragged me out for a warm-up ride on his bike which was fun. Then JP, a work colleague and friend who lives down the road from Richard and Kirsten, and who had offered to accompany me to Winchester, arrived at 8 on the dot as arranged. After 'Goodbyes' and 'Thankyous', off we set on the return trip.

JP is quicker than I am on the hills. Actually to be precise, he is quicker than me on the flat too, but he is substantially quicker on hills. I tried to blame this on my previous days exertions until I found out that he had gone for a 21 mile run on Saturday which puts my 70 mile ride to shame!! We made Winchester in pretty good time compared to the trip down, and arrived in just under 2 hours. I phoned Jules to let her know my progress, and had a quick snack and a rest with JP.

Having left JP in Winchester I started off on the worst section of the trip down (Alton to Winchester had been really hard work yesterday). It felt like I was flying today. I was much quicker and my heart rate was lower; not having the wind in your face makes so much difference. I managed to make it home in 4.5 hours even though I'd travelled 2 miles further with JP's 'short-cuts' around Brokenhurst & Lyndhurst.

It felt so good to get home having cycled all that way. For a few seconds it felt like a big achievement, then I realised I need to do even more next week....

So long Finlay

Today was Finlay's funeral (see Chichester team training ride).

I therefore worked from home so Jules and I could both attend. This of course meant I could go for a quick bike ride before work instead of sitting on a train!! Hence I set off at 7am for an 18 mile ride. What a great way to start the day. Once again it was cold and bright, and I really enjoyed it.

It's hard to describe how the funeral was. A whole mishmash of things; perfect, sad, inspiring, wrong, I could go on....

As with Fraser's funeral, a number of CHASE staff were present. They clearly go not through any professional obligation, but because they care. Not wishing to intrude on proceedings, they wait til all the friends and family have paid their respects, and then they go forward and do the same.

I found myself afterwards thinking about how on earth they deal with attending the funerals of little children they have become close to through caring for them through their final weeks. I've spoken to some of them about it, and they always say "what about you - you've lost your child", but the truth is we get to move on. They have had such a run of these in recent months, you wonder what motivates them to go to work in the morning.

We've become very close to Finlay's parents, shared problems and everything, and have spent some tearful evenings remembering our boys recently. I was supposed to dial in to some conference calls in the evening, but to be frank the funeral brought back too many memories, so I finished work around 5pm and ducked out of the calls.

Cold start again

I'm not quite sure how, but I managed to get up early and go out on the bike for 40 miles today.

We were going to visit Jules' parents in Farnham, so I found a route via Cranleigh, Loxwood & Milford which made it a decent number of miles. I managed it in 2 1/2 hours which I was pleased with; especially as the hills were bigger than google maps had made apparent!

I learnt some more about my Garmin today. Basically the route was a new one, and since I was riding alone, I loaded the route into the Garmin so it could direct me. I know most of the route, except the bit between Milford and Farnham, where I was hoping to take a short-cut through Seale. However, I did not notice the error when I loaded the route into the Garmin which said "route truncated". It gave me directions all the way to Milford, and then said I had arrived at my destination. Great!! I managed to find my way ok, but ended up doing an extra 3 miles or so.

As an aside here, the Garmin is an excellent device. However the software it comes with is not so great. I have to back up my data every time I use it in order not to lose data for previous rides I've done. Also the mapping software it comes with is rubbish (at least in the uk). Pretty much only the A roads are available, and since most of my routes are B roads for training, you can't plan a route using it. I therefore use GoogleMaps to plan my route, get the url and add the option "&output=js" to the end, save the resulting web-page and then use some freeware called GPSBabel to translate the Google data into Garmin data.

Anyhow; enough moaning. I beat my personal best for mileage again this weekend. 110 miles.

What a great day!!

We had such a great day today.

Everyone showed up at our house for the start of the ride. Rich was first and last to arrive; he got here early in order to do some extra miles prior to the training ride. Everyone else was at the house in good time to set off at 8:30am, and Rich returned from his warm-up at exactly 8:30am. Much credit to Lucy for training him; in the pre-Lucy era, he would have been late!!

We set off for CHASE Christophers, where we were welcomed with tea, juice & Gilly-made flapjacks. It was cold, so we were glad of the tea, and the flapjacks were wolfed down in seconds.

We were greeted at Christophers by Bridget Turner, Director of Care. Also the Mayor of Guildford, Mike Nevins, was there in his mayoral vehicle, gold chain & cycling shorts!! Then Andrew Castle showed up to see us off on our first group training ride. We got some great photos in the shirts that Jules had created yesterday.

After the photoshoot, we had a tour of Christophers. Having spoken to the team afterwards, I know that this was an inspirational experience, and for some an emotional one. Certainly it was a good reminder of why we are doing all this training - not that I needed one given the time I spent at CHASE with Jules & Fraser. The tour included a visit to an empty Mistral room; the special bedrooms where children are laid to rest after they die and before their funeral. When we were at Christophers in Fraser's final week, we got to know another family quite well and unfortunately their son had died a week ago. The combination of knowing their little boy Finlay was in the other room, and memories of Fraser were too much for me, and I missed this part of the visit instead taking some quiet time with Gilly in the sanctuary.

The rest of the tour was fine though, and I was pleased to see the positive reactions the rest of the guys had to the various activity rooms available to the kids and families supported by CHASE.

Around 10am, we set off for Chichester. For the first 30 minutes or so I was cycling on pure adrenalin! It was such a great way to start the day with the tour, and the Mayor and Andrew, but then to be out on the road with the whole team of 8 for the first time just felt fantastic. We have come a long way in 6 weeks.

Ciaran left us at Chiddingfold to go skiing, but seemed really pleased with the team's performance. We got to Chichester in good time, and stopped for drinks and snacks at a tea shop on the high street.

We even got some sponsorship money from some random person on the street - thankyou whoever you were!!! Note to self - be better prepared for this next time we are in a town centre.

On the way back we realised why the run down had been so good; we had had a tail-wind. Hence the ride home took a little longer, but we still managed over 70 miles in 4 hours and 45 minutes which seemed like a good first team outing.

The morning of the first training ride

It's 7am. John & Tim stayed over last night, and we managed to go to bed before midnight and without drinking any alcohol. This may not sound shocking to you reading this, but to me the idea of either of these two staying over and the ideas of an early night & no alcohol are somewhat incongruous.

At 8:30 we'll be setting off on our first team training ride. Simon has planned the route, but I think it involves cycling to Chichester. Take a look on the map....Guildford to Chichester & back....it's going to be great!!

I've had a bad week as far as training is concerned (hence the lack of posts). Monday was a rest day. I intended to Turbo train on Tuesday, but I spent too much time trying to readjust my saddle (it had been moved during the service) and fit my new cadence sensor (which works, but seems to stop the speed sensor from working). Wednesday I'd arranged to meet up with a friend who I haven't seen one on one for ages. Thursday Jules and I went out for a meal for valentines night, which was lovely. We went to Vivat Bacchus; fine wine, lovely food, great service - recommended!

Friday was spent preparing for the training ride today. Jules had been trying to get some tee-shirts done for the team photo, and we ended up buying blanks & printing our own transfers. It took ages!!!

Anyhow - wish us luck!

A well deserved rest

I gave my bike (and me) a well deserved rest today. Having done the longest ride I've ever done on Saturday (exceeding my previous by 10 miles) and my most miles in a weekend (exceeding my previous by 20 miles), I decided it would be sensible to take a day off.

In any case, I had booked my bike in for a service.

I'm not sure whether to be proud or not, but I needed a new chain for my bike. Good old Beyond Mountain Bikes did a wonderful job doing the service, and asked if I had been pushing hard. As you'll know if you read this blog, I've been pushing hard for me, but I dont think in the grand scheme of things I pushed that hard such that I'd be stretching my chain. I can only assume the one supplied with the bike was not that good a quality, and after 600 miles that is just normal wear and tear. Anyhow Beyond Mountain Bikes fitted a new dura-ace chain which is apparently far superior to the one I had previously. They also did a fantastic job cleaning & re-lubing the bike. It looks like new - I felt very guilty for the state I left it with them.

I used my free time to positive effect though, and added the Latest News & Thankyous pages to the website.

Time for a service

I've booked by bike in for it's first service today. I've done 600 miles on it, and I've only had it just over a month. I'm pretty sure thats more miles than I've done in total for the rest of my life prior to that month!!!

I wanted to do a 30 mile ride, so GoogleMapped a route from home to Beyond Mountain Bikes via East Horsley, Ranmore Common, Dorking, Coldharbour, Ewshot & Cranleigh.

I found it really hard to get going. My legs just didn't seem to want to move. After 8 miles or so I turned off towards Ranmore which I had remembered as being fairly flat woodland road. That was in a car. There is actually quite a steep hill before the nice flat woodland road. I really struggled up it. A group of cyclists overtook me on the hill and asked if I was ok!!

I learnt a good lesson today: read the names of the roads before you set off on a route. After the unexpected climb at Ranmore, and having cycled through Dorking I then found myself on the Leith Hill road. Bizarrely that lead to Leith Hill, which I'm sure I remember is the largest hill in Surrey.

Leith Hill certainly made me realise the hill at Ranmore wasn't that bad. I struggled to go fast enough to stop my Garmin going into automatic pause mode.

Once I got to the top of Leith Hill, my legs finally woke up, and I ended up doing the 30 miles in the 2 hours I had planned, despite the hills.

Rest day tomorrow though....

Figure of eight

Paul & I decided that it was high time we did the 50 mile circuit and the 20 mile circuit. So Paul devised a cunning figure of 8 circuit of approx 70 miles which we started at 7:30 in the morning. We were back by 1pm, but had a couple of stops for snacks & drinks, so were only cycling for 4.5 hours. Quite a decent pace - you begin to think that the LEJOG route might actually be achievable after all.

Working at home

I had a slightly odd day today. 6 months ago I booked my follow on appointment for a dental check-up. At that time I was working at home every Wednesday to spend more time in the evening and before work with Fraser & give Jules some extra support mid-week. I would therefore try and book Fraser's hospital appointments, check-ups etc for a Wednesday so I did not need to take more time out of the office and I could be there to hear what the experts had to say. I would also book appointments for myself on a Wednesday again so as not to have more time out of the office.

So today I was working at home on a Wednesday again, because I'd booked my 6-monthly dental appointment on a Wednesday. It's amazing how often silly litte things like that come up and remind you of Fraser.

What it did mean however was that I could go for a quick bike-ride before work. I cycled out to Beyond Mountain Bikes in Cranleigh and back. Found out it is exactly 8 miles from my front door to the front door of the shop. I pushed it a bit harder than normal so I could get back in time to have a shower & start work in good time. Consequently I managed 16 miles in just a smidge over the hour. Very pleased - especially as I did 14 turbo miles last night.

Dont eat your uncle Iain

Ok, today's post wont talk too much about bikes as I need to explain why my nephew Ollie has green poo.

First the cycling update: I was back on the turbo again; managed approx 14 miles in an hour, so pretty much the same as last time. I got home in good time, so was ready to start training at 7:30, but then found I had a flat tyre, so had to fix that before I started. Consequently it is now nearly midnight, and I have finished my training, eaten my tea (pancakes!) and made a few updates to the website.

Jules got me the most amazing birthday cake for my party on Saturday (see photo). I got a piano for my birthday present, and hence the cake is supposed to be me playing my new piano. After the party on Sunday, Tim brought two of his boys (my nephews), Josh & Ollie, back to the house for an hour or two. We had a great time together, and at the end of the day, we let them take some of the cake with them. They were keen to take their icing and marzipan model of Uncle Iain, particularly Ollie.

The moral of this story is: dont eat your uncle Iain, or your poo will go green!

Celebrity endorsements

Today was a good day for Race for CHASE. John Nettles and Andrew Castle have both kindly agreed to endorse the race. They both said some incredibly kind things about Jules and I, and I'm so grateful to them for their support. See www.raceforchase.co.uk/html/celebrity.html to see what they said!

Both of them met Fraser at CHASE when he was alive; those are the kind of moments CHASE give you as a family which you can look back on with fond memories. I didn't meet John, but I met Andrew. One thing I remember about Andrew is that he is substantially taller than I am. Need to find a cunning way around that if we can convince him to do some team photos.

I was reading on wikipedia that Andrew was hospitalised on entering the London marathon a few years back due to dehydration. Kind of makes you think when that can happen to someone of his sporting pedigree. We've already been warned about this for our ride - in fact, we almost certainly will be dehydrated by the end of the day as we wont be able to take liquid on fast enough to replenish what we lose.

John's wikipedia entry is also interesting in that he got married in Evesham which is where I went to school. Small world. It doesn't mention how tall he is....

Life begins at 40

Today I turned 40 years old. I started my new year with a 50 mile bike ride (what else) - hence the first person to see me that old was Simon, who seems to be my de facto training buddy these days. He didn't say I looked old or anything, and none of my joints suddenly gave way on the ride, so maybe being 40 isn't so bad after all.


We set out around 7:30, and the temperature was -2 degrees celcuis. That's quite cold if you haven't tried it. We managed almost exactly 50 miles in just a little over 3 hours, so I was quite pleased with that pace; especially for an old fella.



This is a picture of me on my return when Jules presented me with a pile of cards which all appeared to have the objective of rubbing it in how old I was.

We had a bit of a gathering in the evening which was fun, and I even managed to stay awake after the ride, through setting the house up with balloons and food and drink, through partying til 1:30 Sunday morning.

Got some great presents including 6 bottles of Scotch. Simon got me a head-warmer thing to go under my helmet when cycling....would've been nice this morning! I also got some compressed air canisters for quickly re-inflating a tyre which are very cool.