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.