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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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....

Oh dear oh dear

Last night was not a good night. I have already learnt that more exercise lowers your immune system, and have successfully seemed to catch every cold going since Christmas. However last night I learnt that it's not a good idea to drink too much either.

It was a work function, and great fun, but I did not enjoy the after effects of the alcohol. I kind of got out of the habit when Fraser was alive anyhow. We never quite knew when we would be rushing into hospital with him, and Jules and I never felt too great about being drunk under those circumstances.

Hence a combination of that, plus me cutting out most alcohol due to the training plan, plus my dumb idea of drinking flat-liners after a few bottles of wine.....nuff said methinks.

Not looking forward to my ride tomorrow morning. Have been trying to counter the dehydrating effects of the alcohol all day....

The 2nd week

Although I was back at work on 2-Jan, last week was my first full week back since Fraser died. I'm realising that the trick to this challenge is going to be finding the time to get the miles in. Sunday morning was easy enough. Simon joined Paul and I on our 35 mile route via Dorking. I felt great after that ride - much stronger than on New Years day. Could it possibly be that this training is paying off already?

I had a work function on Thursday night, and planned to keep Friday clear, so I turbo-trained on Monday and Wednesday with a break on Tuesday. Because I had a shortened turbo-training session on Wednesday due to working late, I also went out for a short 15 mile ride on Saturday morning.

This brought my weekly total to 72 miles (including the turbo). Thats 4 miles further than the first week which is good, but not as good as I had hoped. Having said that, my average speed is up 1/2 mph and my average cadence is up 5.

35 miler - Happy New Year!!

I can't quite believe I'm out on my bike again, but what a great way to start the New Year!!

Paul & I decide to go out on a slightly longer ride, but less hilly, so we can a) get some more miles under our belt and b) focus on getting our cadence up.

We're aiming to do 25 miles, but we miss a turn and end up doing 35. This is another difference with the road bike compared to the mountain bike - you can really cover some distance. We cycled from Guildford to Dorking (via Cranleigh) - it felt great! It would have been a significant drive, and we did it by pedal power!!

It was a miserable day however, and I have to confess I felt like giving up, getting a hot drink & booking a taxi when we unexpectantly ended up in Dorking. Fraser popped into my head to keep me going though, and when I arrived home I felt fantastic.

It's real

Today a group of people met for a quick bicycle ride (22 miles) followed by some lunch and a discussion about a much longer ride this coming summer.

Everyone seems up for it, and suddenly this mad idea I had after my son, Fraser, passed away seems very real. We agreed that in 26 weeks time we will cycle from Land's End to John O'Groats to raise money for CHASE childrens hospice where Fraser spent much of his 2½ years and in particular his last week. The tough part is we will be doing it in 5 days as if it is not challenging enough.