Festive 500 - Ride 2

Before I start on today’s ride, I just wanted to say that I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas yesterday and that Santa brought you everything you wanted and more.

Now then, today’s ride.  What can I say other than wet and horrible.  I woke up this morning and didn’t want to go so was off to a bad start before I’d even got out of bed.  Then, out of the blue came a text from Paul letting me know that there were some people on Strava who had already completed the 500km!  I decided to see if he was going out on his bike, hoping I’d be able to tag along and give me the motivation needed to get out there despite the weather.  This was easily the best decision I could have made.  He was going out so for a start, I would be going out on the bike when I didn’t want to but secondly I ended up doing more miles than I would have if I’d managed to push myself to go out on my own.  The only way I can describe today’s ride is my worst experience on a bike ever that didn’t involve a crash.  I know this sounds dramatic considering the only thing that really went “wrong” was that it was bucketing down with rain.  For some reason though I was mentally drained today, Mother Nature had beaten me down and I was ready to give in.  Physically I felt fine, my legs were great but every push on the pedals seemed to require more effort than normal.  When I finally got home, soaked to the bones and realising once again that absolutely none of my bike kit is waterproof, I decided that was it as far as this challenge is concerned.  I rode 42 miles today, taking my total towards the challenge to over 100, a third of the way there.  I decided though that as long as the rain was coming down, I was staying in and looking at the weather forecast, I wouldn’t be going out on the bike again this week.

Since I came home this afternoon, I’ve had chance to dry off, warm up and relax a bit.  I also watched Mark Cavendish’s new DVD.  Despite everything I had felt earlier on this afternoon, watching it gave me the bug to get back out on my bike as soon as I could.  The misery of today had faded and I’m now looking forward to going out again, backed up by the fact that after writing this, I’m off to look online for waterproof clothing!  It’s strange but at the moment there is a strange sense of pride within me.  I was at my lowest on the bike today but I still finished the ride.  There were several times where I could have had a lift home or turned back but I didn’t, I stuck at it and got it done.  It wouldn’t have been the case though if I hadn’t have had my buddy there with me today so thanks Paul for staying with me around there today.  I don’t know how my legs are going to feel in the morning but if I’m able to, I expect I’ll end up going out for a couple of hours and get one step closer to the magical 310 miles!

Festive 500 - Ride 1

Well, the day has finally arrived! No, not Christmas Eve, the start of the Festive 500. Unfortunately the weather didn't want to play along so today consisted of a very wet 5 and half hours in the saddle racking up the miles. To be honest it was an eventful day and that was before I'd even left the house! I woke up at 5am and made myself some breakfast to give myself time then before I left at 7. Not sooner than I'd cracked some eggs ready to scramble, my Dad came bursting into the kitchen ready to confront the "burglar"! Now I appreciate that hearing a noise downstairs at 5 in the morning would startle anyone but I had told him I would be getting up early and I'm sure a genuine burglar would look somewhere other than the fridge if they did break in!

After that unfortunate misunderstanding out of the way I left the house, as planned, at 7am and had to be home no later than 12:30 to go out for our traditional family Christmas Eve meal. I ended up cycling through all 5 counties that make up Gwent on my route this morning. Starting off at home in Abertillery I headed up to Sofrydd before turning down to Crumlin. It was then onto Risca and then up to Fourteen Locks before heading over to Cwmbran. From there I headed over the Caerleon, up to Usk, across to Raglan, back to Usk via the Chain Bridge and then back to Pontypool, Hafodyrynys, Sofrydd and home again to Abertillery. In all I cycles 65 miles and pushed the 12:30 deadline to the limit! 65 miles might not be much of a dent in the 310 that the challenge demands and it has made me realise what a massive task this will be but it's a decent start and one I can build upon.

I also learnt a few things during my ride today as well; firstly, I have NO waterproof clothing! I learnt this the hard way today for sure and was drenched. I was fairly certain my cycling jacket offered some sort of protection from the water but I was wrong. Also my overshoes are just for cold weather riding, not wet weather riding and when your feet are soaking wet, they are no good at keeping then dry either! One good thing though was that although I had a waterproof cover over my little big bag (which incidentally isn't waterproof!) I put my phone in a sandwich bag. That turned out to be the only thing that was waterproof on the bike thankfully so my phone still works, yay!

The second thing I learnt is that trying to be a pro and cycle without your hands on the bars is a stupid idea, especially on Christmas Eve! Thankfully I managed to save myself before hurtling into a ditch and have learnt my lesson. I don't like hospitals at the best of times and wouldn't have been happy having to have my Christmas dinner on one!

The third and most important thing that I learnt today is that even when you make eye contact with someone driving a car, they probably still won't have seen you and will probably just pull out on you. Now I don't want to get into a big rant about drivers vs. cyclists, that's been done enough recently in the papers and on the telly. I'm just thankful and lucky that I had the sense and the opportunity to move out of the way. The driver did see me eventually and stopped quickly but if I had carried on in the line I was on I would have been over the bonnet for sure. Like I said, I'm thankful and also lucky that it didn't happen but it did shake me up a little bit. I've been lucky that in the couple of years I've been cycling on the roads, that is only the second incident I've had and the first one was my own fault so I guess we're even! With that out of my mind I was able to make it home without incident and enjoyed a little reward when I went out for the meal. Now I know I promised picture of my rides but today wasn't the weather to be getting the phone out and snapping away so instead, here is a picture of said treat! Have a fantastic Christmas everyone.

An Alternative Christmas Break

Having started this blog to keep track of my adventures in 2013 I'm now going to start it properly with an adventure to see out 2012!  I have decided to attempt the Rahpa Festive 500.  When I go out on my bike I use an app called Strava.  Every now and again they have a challenge on there and when this one came up I thought why not!  The challenge is to ride 500km (310 miles) starting on Christmas Eve and finishing on New Years Eve.  It's a big ask and it might not even be possible, especially if we have some bad weather but I'll give it a go none the less.  I'll also have my cycling buddy Paul with me along the way so at least I won't be the only mad one out on the bike when I should be enjoying a turkey sandwich or some other variation of left over turkey!  I'll post an update after each ride to let you know how it's going and I'll even try and take a picture or 2 as well!

Hi,

Welcome to my new blog to keep track of my 2013. I'm guessing that those of you reading this (assuming anyone is!) already know me so I won't bore you with an introduction of myself. The bit you might not know about me though is that this year I did a few triathlons. Now, I know I'm not the best at them and I'm definitely not going to be challenging the Brownlee brothers but I enjoy doing them and it makes going to the gym a bit more interesting when there is a reason for the training. I enjoyed them so much in fact that I am now a member of the Newport and East Wales Triathlon Club or N.E.W.T and want to do more triathlons in 2013.

So what is my challenge for 2013? Well having made the decision to carry on doing triathlons in 2013 I thought it would be a good idea to try and raise a few pounds for charity.  I then decided that if I was going to ask people to sponsor me, I might as well do something different, something challenging, something big and something I’d never done before.  Now I know this is a slight contradiction because a lot of the events I will be doing in 2013 I have done before so what’s different?  Well, firstly this will be the first time I will have done all these things in the same year and many of them will happen close together so it will be tough.  To be honest, I’m not sure if I will be able to do everything I want to but I’ll give it a damn good go!  Secondly, the “new” events for me in 2013 are quite big things, 2 half marathons and 2 Ironman 70.3 triathlons.  One of these on their own would be a big challenge but like I said, I wanted 2013 to be big and challenging so why not all 4!

Now you know what I plan to do I’d better tell you who I’m doing it for.  The charity I will be raising money for is the St. David’s Foundation.  I have done a few different things to raise money for them in the last couple of years and wanted to carry this on in 2013.  It also means I can do the Newport half marathon and their various bike rides and raise money for them all in one go rather than asking people for 4 or 5 different sponsorships throughout the year.

Just a quick note about the list on the left.  The wish list are for events that I’m planning to do but aren’t available for registration yet but once they are, I’ll be signing up!  The only exception is the London Ride 100 which is a ballot entry so fingers crossed I’ll get a space.  If I don’t I’ll be changing it for something else.  Also, I’m still open to doing other events so this definitely isn’t the finished thing.

So there we are, that’s the big plan for 2013.  I’ll be using this blog kind of like a diary with how the training is going, what events I have signed up for and how they go when I finally get to do them.  Thanks for reading.