Training....

A good weekend was had on the bike. Did over 20 miles on Sunday and followed it up on Monday morning with this ride...32 miles. I found it pretty tough, and felt quite tired for most of the rest of Monday, but to be honest as of 7.30am today (Tuesday) I feel much better.

As you can see there wasn't much elevation (about 1,000 ft in total) and this is going to be the toughest part of the whole ride for me - the hills.


I managed an average speed of 14.3 mph but with my reckoning chuck in some (proper) hills and a bit of fatigue and this will drop to around 13 mph. This would mean each day will take around 5 hours of cycling. There are some quite interesting dynamics, in that, for one, I need to work whilst I am cycling (!), or at least I need to be able to work during the two weeks, not actually whilst I am on a bike. This should lead to the following timetable:


7am - Wake up, check work emails etc...
7.30am - Brekkie
8 - any urgent work stuff
8.30 - Start first 30-35 miles
11am - 'lunch'
12 - work calls/emails
12.30 - back on the bike
2pm - break after 15-17 miles
2.30pm - work calls/emails
3pm - back on the bike
4.30pm - finish, work stuff...
6pm onwards - shower, emails, collapse, food, sleep.


Rinse.


And.


Repeat. (x 14)


Day 15 is 'just' 25 miles, and I'm going to enjoy that one.


It looks a lot harder than I first thought it would. Initially I figured I would spend 4 hours on the bike and wouldn't worry about breaks etc, but when you think it through the above seems realistic. I also think, having a had a big meal the night before it is best to do 32/16/16 as opposed to 22/22/22 'legs' - thanks to Trevor Cummings for this tip.


In terms of training this week...I am going to try to do 10-15 miles every night (bar Weds when I'm working til 10). Also, proper diet starts now (with the exception of Wednesday too), no booze until after the ride. That's no booze for a month.


I may have found two more riders - my step-sister has said she wants to do 2/3 days from Inverness to Glasgow (she may ride 2 days and not the middle one), and a friend wants to do the first two (but we've got to work out how to get him and his bike up to Scotland).


Coming soon on the blog...my kit (a geeky post), and, what I believe my ride represents (a feelings one)...at some point when I'm not condensing five days work into 4.