Training is done…now for the Ride

This past weekend I took part in the London Revolution, a 190-mile two-day cycle sportive around the capital. When I entered this event last year it was at that point the furthest I have ever ridden over two days; this year it is a training session for our epic mission of 900 miles in 9 days which starts this Saturday.

It was great to meet a couple more people who will be part of the Ride 999 team. Phil and James kept me company through the weekend and it was great to get some good miles done with them. The ride itself was great—like last year, the weather was beautiful and the hospitality was very generous. So much food!

At the finish with Phil who accompanied me over the two days

One of the big highlights for me was forming part of a 15-person ‘chain-gang‘ as we entered Chesham and sped along to Latimer. Last year I couldn’t dream of keeping up with all of the fast people that were zooming past me so it was good that this year I could at least hang on at the back. I kept looking at my Garmin and couldn’t believe how much speed we were carrying as we sped along. (I think it looked pretty cool, too!) I can see why this kind of riding is addictive.

I did both days at an average of about 15.9mph which is roughly 2mph faster than last year—it may not sound like much but it made a world of difference. I’ve been hobbling around the office today so I am not sure what state my body will be in by the time I am three or four days in next week.

So my final training stats from the start of January are:

Miles ridden: 2,167

Rides: 62

Climbing: 78,826ft

Time: 5d 17h 53m

Bouts of pneumonia: 1

Nights in hospital: 2

This graph looks good to me and will hopefully look suitably ridiculous by the end of the month:

This week I will be mainly eating. Next week I will try to keep this blog up-to-date with something every day. I can’t guarantee what shape I will be in, especially from the end of day three onwards, but I will try and write something at least slightly comprehensible.

Thanks so much again for all of the support and sponsorship, I really appreciate all the interest and especially the donations and I know that Get Connected do too. I’m up to £3,600 and am hoping that I can push this a little bit further by the time we roll into Milan.