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)!

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.

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!

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

Now we're getting somewhere!!

It's getting light earlier now, so we set off sharper today. Mad Paul still insists on cycling from his house to mine, so he ends up doing an extra 14 miles or so on me. I'd like to say he needs the extra training, but in fact the reverse is true; I'm sure I used to be fitter than he did. When did that happen? :-)

Anyhow, we set off at 8am with promises from the weathermen of rainshowers later in the morning. It seems that whatever the weathermen say is pretty much the most likely thing not to happen. So it was today. The rain never materialised, although it was a bit blustery. Largely the same route as last weekend via Haslemere, but with an extra 10 miles added at the southern end. 55 miles!!!!! Feeling good now. 50 miles was a mental objective for me. Better think of another one now. And that blummin hill at Hindhead felt a lot better today.

Ciaran, having told Simon we were starting at 8, woke up at 8 for an 8:30 start. So we set off without him and he promised to catch us up. We took a slight detour 8 miles in at Cranleigh, and it must have been at that point that Ciaran caught up and overtook us. I'm obviously not taking any pleasure thinking of him pushing himself for 50 miles trying to catch us up, but he got home about 30 minutes before we did!!!

Going for another ride tommorrow morning. Will be interesting to see how my bum feels...

40 miler!

Ciarán, Simon and I set out for a longer ride this morning. The weather was better than it was supposed to be according to the weathermen, but nonetheless quite blustery which made the going a bit tough at times.

We set out in a similar direction to my 35 mile route, but continued on into Bramley, then Chiddingfold, Haslemere, Hindhead then up to the Hogs Back back to Guildford. It was a good ride, with a particularly horrible hill out of Hindhead right on through Haslemere. According to my Garmin, we went from 200 ft to 850 ft. I need to work on my ascents - but I'm definitely getting better the more I do. The best thing was coming down the hill the other side - we hit 35 mph at one point.

I'm still not quite used to the distance you can achieve on a road-bike. I can't believe I cycled to Haslemere today....

Bonking with Paul

Paul and I set off for a ride of 85 miles. The weather was good; it was mild and dry, although it was a bit windy.

We planned to stop after 30 and 60 miles to have a quick rest and a snack.

The ride started well. I took Paul over a new hill I found between East Horsley and Shere. Its a great hill - nice gradual incline on a quiet road. It starts around 300 ft and climbs to about 700 ft over about 2.5 miles and then drops to just over 200ft and back up to nearly 500 ft over the next 3.5 miles. Then there is a fantastic 10 mile downhill all the way to Abinger Hammer.

After about 30 miles, on the road between Billingshurst & Petworth, we stopped for a snack & a rest. I had run out of energy bars, so had brought some malt-loaf for a change. Somehow I had got a drawing pin in my front tyre, so we wasted some time changing the tube & re-inflating the tyre.

Somewhat behind time, we set off again feeling good. As we approached Petworth I started to struggle a bit and my legs felt heavy and by the time we got to Fernhurst I had to stop. It was really strange, I was just exhausted, and couldn't even stand up. I wondered if I was short of energy, and Paul gave me one of his energy bars. After a short break we set off again, but I still could not seem to get much speed up, and for the next 10 miles our average speed dropped off.

By this time, due to the wasted time on the puncture, and the lack of pace, we were getting seriously late - Paul had to be home by 1:30. We'd arrived at Liss, so we stopped quickly again to phone home & warn the girls we were likely to be late. I was very tempted to ask Jules to come and pick me up, because I was a bit worried about pushing myself too hard. However, when I spoke to her she didn't sound very well, so I decided to push on.

When we set off again, I started to feel much better, and by the time we got to Alton after another 10 miles, we were back on good pace. It was 12:30, and we still had over 20 miles to go to Guildford - looked like Paul would be really late. However, once we were on the A31, we suddenly had the wind behind us on a nice flat bit of road. We decided to try out the "big cogs", and managed to get to Guildford inside an hour - it felt fantastic to be racing along at over 20 miles an hour for that length of time!!!

On arriving home, and describing to Ciaran what had happened, he reckoned I had "bonked". This is when your body has used up all its stores of glycogen, and you become extremely debilitated (click on it for more details!!!).

So - a bit of a struggle, but my longest ride yet. 88 miles. :-)