The Final Video - Land's End to John O'Groats

Easter 2013

Training Montage

New Bike

Yesterday, on the way home from Sufferfest, I fell off my bike at a roundabout. I stopped, then as I went to pedal, the wheel didn't turn and I was just left spinning. With no momentum, and being clipped, in I fell embarrassingly on to the pavement.

So today, I went to my friendly bike shop for a pre-Le Jog service and they told me (as I suspected) that it basically won't make it. He kindly phoned around other Norwich shops to see if there were any wheels that I could buy and was very helpful. New wheels (they annoyingly come in pairs) would cost about £150; therefore, I went to another shop and spent a lot more than that on a new bike. Now I am extremely excited, but also nervous because I'm scared of breaking this one.

I also bought a new waterproof jacket and waterproof gloves as the forecast for the first three days is 20+ mph head winds and heavy rain. Should be fun. At least my bike should last the trip (fingers crossed).

No Excuses

Today Charlotte and I went to do the Wiggle No Excuses sportive.

I had planned on doing the Epic (80 mile) route and Charlotte was going to do the Standard (40 mile). However, due to torrential rain and gale force winds they cancelled the Epic route. I pretended to be upset but 80 miles in that would have been grim.

In the end, it was actually really nice going round with Charlotte and surviving the worst this weather had to offer.

We fell just short of getting a silver medal time, which is incredibly impressive. Just a few months ago Charlotte was struggling to do that sort of distance and now she is probably in the top 30-40% of riders in a sportive. By the end of Le Jog she'll be the next Lizzie Armitstead!

This is the video from last year (I don't reckon they'll be using footage from this year's to promote the next race):

I filmed a bit of it using the action cam and will upload a video of our training soon.

Sufferfest

I managed to cycle to work a few times this week and today I paid the price. I got caught in rather grim weather upon my return home. I had just enough time to get changed, dry off and grab a quick snack before Sufferfest.

Charlotte goes to the earlier, ladies-only class and I suffer in the 19:45 session. On the way down I got soaked again; riding is really not that fun in this weather.

If you're not sure what the Sufferfest, is watch this trailer for the session we did on Friday.

 

There are a lot of people who all go down to the City Academy and put their bikes on turbo trainers. Everyone then pedals like mad for about an hour or so whilst this video tells us what to do. The organisers walk round offering coaching and 'encouragement'.

Set to music and often in low lighting, it has been a great place for us to train over the winter. It's not what I used to do on my Friday nights but good fun nonetheless. I'd recommend it to anyone.

If you still can't picture it...

Imagine 50 people in a room doing this (with clothes ON)!