Read the event report here

See the photos from the event here

Please keep donating to our just giving page, were nearly at our £1000 target

So the ride is almost here and both Mark and I are very excited. The last few weeks have been tough with us both putting in some long rides, one of 6 hours where I just dipped under the 100 mile mark - gutted or what!?

Had news this morning from Weymouth that the road that we will be riding in on is closed due to snow!! Let’s just hope its gone by Friday night otherwise we will have a bit of a detour to get in from the other side of the town!!

Now as the training has been going well we have had some issues with our support vehicle and personnel. Unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances we have lost Sqd Ldr Smith from my ATC unit, his last night was last Thursday. Although we will be seeing him in the year he has had to make a move from this area closer to RAF Odiham and the house move is this weekend! I know he is gutted and he cannot help it but that is just the way things go. I would like to thank him again for all his help and support.

So with no mini bus we have no way of transporting cadets and so no support team. Never fear I managed to recruit family and loved ones into doing it for us, so a big thank you to them.

On a plus side I had a phone call from a lovely woman at the Dorset echo who wanted to know about what we were doing and so we will hopefully be in the paper next week. Famous at last! So thank you to my Aunt for getting in touch with the paper and to Miriam for wanting to run an article about us.

This week has been an easier week with two hour and fifteen min rides which ended with 21 miles notched up. Out of laziness I did the same ride Monday and Wednesday only on the Monday it was just me and Mark but Wednesday we had a friend of Marks, Fred a full on roadie. A great guy and I love riding with him but damn is this guy quick! And boy can he climb it’s great to see him dance on the pedals but its tough to keep him in sight! None the less I’m looking forward to more rides with him in the year.

The rest of the week is planned rest which is nice as I have my birthday off to relax I just need to make sure I don’t scoff down to much cake!! Friday night I have planned to go to bed at 6pm which will be interesting as I’m sure the house will be nice and noisy but seeing as I’m going to be riding at 5am Saturday I need the sleep!

Just like to say once again thank you to all who have helped with this project and to all who have sponsored us and to Mountain Mania cycles for their help with servicing and supplying us with spares.

All that is left to say is wish us luck and pray with us for a dry day!

Weeks 3-6 19.01.09 – 14.02.09

Been really busy over the last couple of weeks so have not left any entries for a while.

So to catch up, I have been working hard over the weeks as well as having fun in the snow!! Mark and I have completed a ride involving the first leg of our charity ride up to Oxford which gave us an idea of what we have laying ahead of us. It was an interesting ride with multiple punctures for Mark much to his annoyance. I had my first encounter with riding on dual carriage ways with a truck getting way too close for comfort! On the way home I was so close to getting zapped by a speed camera I just spotted it too late.

The week after I went out on my own to see how many miles I could do in 3 and half hours. In the end I managed 55 miles which has given me new confidence in being able to complete the charity ride in a good time and not spend the whole weekend riding!! On the ride I put in some more time on the dual carriage way, and was surprised at how much smoother the road surface was which greatly increased the speed at which I was travelling. If this is the case on the ride itself I won’t mind all the trucks trying to run me down if we can keep the speed up in the 26 mph range!!

Along with the long rides I have been putting in interval work in the form of 2 by 20 min interval sessions and smaller rides of 1.5/2 hour rides. The interval work involves riding 2 sets of 20 mins riding right up to my lactic threshold with a 10 min steady ride in between. It does not sound that hard but give it a go and you will soon change your mind. For the short rides I have been going out and riding some of my favourite local hills.

This week I got my new fulcrum racing 5 wheels and it snows!! So not being able to go and give them a good test ride in the snow I decided to swap my rest week so I could go and play in the snow. If European pro racers can cross train in the snow then so can I. On the Monday I took a long walk up to combe hill to sledge which was great fun, I can’t remember the last time I sledged in proper snow. On the Thursday I went to play on a dry ski slope which ironically was covered in wet snow! Good fun but hard work running up the hill each time to fly down again! Had good fun but did have a small crash leaving me with I nice little bump on my head!

While waiting for the snow and ice to disappear I decided to put some time in on the turbo trainer. This just led to a week of getting punctures as I was using a worn out tyre that was getting to hot and popping the inner tube all the time. I managed to get myself a funky orange turbo tyre for the end of the week so I could put in a good 4 hours and 108 miles of riding which was not as hard as I thought it would be after not really riding for a week.

Week 2    12/01/09 -18/01/09

I had to rest days and then did my speed/climbing sessions on the Thursday and Friday and buy the end of Friday night I was grumpy and tired. I really have had two long weeks and I am looking forward to my rest week next week 
 

Week 1    5/01/09 -11/01/09

This week was the first week of my new training and what a week! On Monday I did 3 hours of training on the turbo trainer and it was hard. I only got the thing before Christmas and I haven’t used it much so it was a bit of a shock to the body. The hardest thing in truth is not being able to free wheel it very hard to stay constantly pedalling, at least I get to watch a good DVD! I can see these long sessions hurting lots.

As well as doing smaller sessions on Thursday and Friday to work on speed, Mark dragged me to his for some testing on my rest day! I had to do two test the first being a Sprint test recording my max power (818 watts) and Average power (652 watts) from this mark could work out my power to weight ratio. At 74.7 kg I have P/W of 4.98 watts/kg

The next test was the Ramp test. Starting at riding at 100 watts every 3 mins I had to increase 25 watts until I could not complete a 3 min cycle. I manage 10 cycles which was 325 watts. This test gave us readings on my heart rate which in turn gives boundaries for my heart rate to be in when I am training. For example endurance rides at the beginning of each week my heart rate should be between 135-155 beats. I hope this stuff works because the test almost killed me!!

05/01/09

Over Christmas I had a good brake from training and had time to reflect on the challenge I had set. What a challenge! I openly admit that endurance riding is not something I am great at, in fact I bought a road bike to help improve it! However in the last year I have come along leaps and bounds and so I am feeling quite confident.

Just after Christmas Mark gave me my new training schedule for the next 3 months we sat down and went through what was what. The beginning of each week will see me doing long rides between 2.5 and 6 hours with the other sessions working on my speed and climbing work.