With the British Heart Foundation London to Brighton bike ride this weekend, I suddenly feel quite nervous. Sure, I am pretty fit, but I’m not sure my legs (or my bum!) are ready for 54miles on a bike! I know it is going to be a challenge, but I’m up for it.
In preparation, Tom and I decided we better do a long ride, although we’re not quite sure whether this is frowned upon in the week before the race?! So much for our training plan- sadly life has got totally in the way and aside from commuting to work by bike occasionally, and a couple of spinning classes, I haven’t completed any of my training rides.
We both finished work early today, and knew we should take advantage of that to get in a 20 miler. Our first stop was Evans, where we both bought our (matching) bikes, to get water bottles holders fitted, and some lycra. Tom has been worried about needing some extra padding on his derriere for the ride, so we bought him some rather fetching padded shorts.
By the time we had booked our bikes in for a service, pumped up our tyres and kitted Tom out with all the gear, we decided that maybe a 20 mile bike ride would be a little ambitious, so set off on a shorter route. I had wanted to go to Richmond Park and test out the route that will be part of the Duathlon that I’m doing in September!
We cycled along the river from Chiswick, along to Chiswick Bridge, crossed over to the South of the river, through Barnes and Putney, sticking mostly to the main roads. Since having my cycling lesson a couple of weeks ago I feel far more comfortable on the road. I’ve been practicing my signalling (super cool I know) and feel more confident knowing where to position myself on the road. Although we did use the pedestrian crossings around the two huge roundabouts.
We cycled just under 11 miles, meeting our goal target of 10 miles an hour. I’m hoping we can keep that pace on Sunday, and finish in about 6 hours- including stops, although I’ve heard that the course can get quite congested. I felt good throughout the ride, and only felt a bit of a of a ‘thigh burn’ going up Putney Bridge, and when I had to overtake a bus. It’s boosted my confidence in our ability to at least finish the race on Sunday, whether it will be a comfortable finish remains to be seen!
Good luck on Sunday. I’m a long time runner and I used to think I could do minimal training for long rides. I sure found that wasnn’t true. And it wasn’t even near as far as 54 miles.