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!

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!

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.

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!!

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....

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'

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!!

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.

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....

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.

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....

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.

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. :-)

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.