Centurion

On Easter Monday I took part in the Cotswold Spring Classic. I am not sure I have ever made up so many swear words in my life (although I should admit that most of these were conventional swear words with the word biscuit added to the end). 

Perhaps I should start with an excerpt from the rider manual:

Additional route information – please be aware that the 163km route includes some very tough climbs, and technical descents. Some may think that there is not much climbing, but you are in the Cotswolds and when roads go up – they’re steep!! The last third of the long route includes a lot of the major climbs, therefore if you are not sure of your ability this early in the season please don’t risk it. We do run a broom wagon and if you get caught by it we will have to pull you out of the event for your own safety.

During the safety briefing the above message was reinforced quite strongly - we were told that the final 60km of the long route involved as much climbing as the first 100km (but a bit steeper) and that anybody feeling a bit jaded or not quite up for it should stick to the medium route when the routes split.

Having not slept particularly well, I decided at that point that however much I might want to ride 100 miles (160km), this was not the time to try it.

The ride involved a procession of hills, some of which had photographers at or near the top and some of which were timed hill climbs. Some of them were quite hard work.

Another difficult thing about the ride was the number of feed stops. The Tour de Bristol, that I took part in the previous weekend, had three feed stops within 100km ride. This one had one feed stop for the 100km ride and two stops for the 160km route.

Around 90km into the route, I thought about a conversation that I had with a friend the day before. He had taken part in a sprint triathlon and really enjoyed it, but (sensibly in my view) had no intention of doing a longer triathlon - unlike his sister, who completed an iron man a few years ago.

This sparked a dilemma in my head. On one hand, I really wasn't up for cycling a further 60km of hills, tiredness and pain. On the other hand, (i) I am training for a 4-day ride (the longest stage of which is 214km long) so will need to get to grips with longer rides at some point, (ii) I had told people that I was going to ride 100 miles (i.e. the long route) so there was a degree of pride at stake, (iii) I rode 135km last month - would quitting at 100km be a backwards step? (iv) I had 4 hours or so before the cut-off time - if I try the 160km and it doesn't work out I can either walk up some hills or bail out and hitch a lift back on the broom wagon.

While the above was still going through my mind, I found myself turning off to take the 160km route.

I immediately saw what they meant about the climbs. Never mind, I thought, there were so many steep hills straight after the turning off that I was surely getting the climbs out of the way.

That turned out to be a whole load of **** biscuits!

The hills continued and it was not long before I started to dread the lengthy descents as these were always going to be followed by lengthy, and often steep, climbs.

As painful as the hills were, they give the opportunity for some impressive views. I was struck by the following view as I approached Sheepscombe - and was grateful for the excuse to pause while I took a photo.

Slad Valley was particularly painful and demoralising - going down one side, crossing to climb out of the valley on the other side before immediately descending back into the valley and climbing back out again. At this point in the ride I met up with another rider, who joined me for some swearing and - eventually - a short walk uphill.

I can keep banging on about hills, but the only way to do this any justice is a picture of the elevation of the ride. The below picture is a screenshot from my phone. 

To further illustrate how difficult this was, if you google "how many calories will I burn if I run a marathon" the top result tells you that the burn rate is approximately 100 calories per mile - i.e. 2,600 calories for the entire race. According to my Garmin app I burned 3,967 calories during this ride.

Hopefully I now have your sympathy.

There was a moment, about 7-8km before the end, that I realised I was tired, hungry, alone and struggling along even flat roads. Determined to finish, however, I pushed on through to receive a much-needed round of applause as I crossed the line and collected my finisher's medal.

It says a lot about my frame of mind at the end of the ride that I wanted to take the following picture (sorry James, that is a bit of my leg).

It was, so far as I can remember, the toughest experience of my life.

Fundraising 
This summer I will be riding 670km (430 miles) in four days as I tackle four stages of the Tour de France. More information is available here.

All of this hard work is to raise money for the fantastic William Wates Memorial Trust. WWMT gives funding and support to organisations and projects which help disadvantaged young people by keeping them away from a life of crime.

Please visit my fundraising page at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/TomHoldaway.

Alternatively, if you would like to sponsor me but do not want to do so online, let me know and I will cycle over to collect your donation in person (within reason obviously - I am not cycling too far!). 


Thank you for reading!

Hot and hilly - Tour de Bristol 2017

In support of St Peter's Hospice, I took part in the Tour de Bristol on Saturday. Given a choice of three distances (35km, 50km or 100km) I opted for the longer, most challenging route as part of my training for this year's Tour de Force.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, not much of the event took place on the busy streets of Bristol. This, in itself, gave me a bit of a shock as I realised the sort of distance I am covering on longer rides. Anybody who has ever thought that driving to Clevedon or Cheddar from Bristol is a bit of a faff will appreciate that cycling to both is not likely to be a leisurely ride.

You can watch a video of the 50km route if you would like to get a flavour of the ride.

Having some concerns about parking, I set off for Ashton Court at 7am. As you will see from the following photographs, it was a good thing I got there early:

After fighting through the crowds, I met up with some of my colleagues and made my way to the start of the ride.

The ride itself was fun. Here are some highlights:

1. Sociable feed stops are definitely the way forward.
2. Cycling up Cleeve Hill - the first point at which I decided to abandon my colleagues and get the hill over and done with (although I did wait for them at the top)!
3. Getting sworn at by somebody in a mini as I cycled up Burrington Combe, because I was in the process of overtaking another cyclist when the driver decided to overtake me - for the record, if a driver has to cross to the other side of the road to overtake one cyclist, it really makes no difference to that driver if they have to go slightly further over to overtake two cyclists!
4. Cheddar Gorge! I had heard some scary stories about cycling up Cheddar Gorge, but I quite enjoyed it. The hill goes on for around 10km, I think, but once the steep bit at the bottom is out of the way, most of it just a case of settling into a rhythm and showing gravity who is boss.
5. The horrible steep hill shortly before the third feed stop, the location of which I didn't think to check because I was too busy trying not to have to walk up the hill.
6. The person who rode the whole route that I am moaning about here, but with a Deliveroo backpack on!
7. Waiting with my colleagues at the end to see everybody cross the line.
8. The weather was great! Better, in fact, than I had expected. Here is the outcome of that:

Just to confirm, that is sunburn - not a really nice tan.

About St Peter's Hospice

St Peter's Hospice is a fantastic charity in Bristol which cares for adults with life-limiting illnesses, aiming to improve the quality of their living and dying while extending care and support to their families and loved ones. St Peter's Hospice is a charity which is close to the heart of a number of my friends and colleagues.

It may seem ridiculous in a blog which was set up to help me meet my fundraising target for one charity for me to plug another one, but I have always taken the view that I am not going to tell anybody what to do with their hard-earned money. I took part in this event with my colleagues, without whom it would have been much more difficult and far less enjoyable. If you would like to support this effort, please do visit our fundraising page. As a firm we have already managed to raise over £9,000 for taking part in this event alone!

My own fundraising effort!
I will be riding 670km (430 miles) in four days this summer as I tackle four stages of the Tour de France. Sadly, I am going to find each stage even tougher than the Tour de Bristol - especially by the final day in the Pyrenees.

All of this hard work is to raise money for the fantastic William Wates Memorial Trust. WWMT gives funding and support to organisations and projects which help disadvantaged young people by keeping them away from a life of crime.

Please visit my fundraising page at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/TomHoldaway.

Alternatively, if you would like to sponsor me but do not want to do so online, let me know and I will cycle over to collect the money from you (within reason obviously - I'm not cycling too far!). 

Shout outs
A huge thank you to everybody for your continued support. A special thank you goes to both James and Rob (to whom I am so grateful I did not call him Hornblower) for your kind donations.

Thank you for reading!

Fun with maths

No, not crystal maths - this isn't Breaking Bad, you know!

Whilst I understand that the title might seem like an oxymoron, I decided to write this post after receiving donations to take me over halfway towards my fundraising total (more on that later).

In February I bought myself a GPS computer to record my training. What this has revealed so far is as follows:

• Between 10 February 2017 - 31 March 2017, I recorded over 1,116 km cycled - I have actually cycled further, as there have been plenty of journeys where I either forgot to start the GPS or it has taken a while to pick up a signal and I got fed up with waiting, but (as with the time that I recorded running 99.8km in one month when I had actually run further) if it isn't recorded, it doesn't count!
• This equates to 25,647 calories burned.
• The above period covers 50 days and gives an average of 22.32 km and 512.94 calories per day.
• During the month of March, there were just 6 days on which I did not cycle at all.

To put this into context though, when I ride four stages of the Tour de France this summer (more details here):

• Between 4 July 2017 - 7 July 2017, I will be cycling 694 km.
• This will equate to 45,000 calories burned.
• The above period covers 4 days and gives an average of 173.5 km and 11,250 calories per day.
• During the above 4 days, there will be no rest days!

I am choosing to ignore the elevation statistics for now because they are a bit scary.

Once again, I am incredibly grateful to everybody who has donated so far - it really means a lot to me. As mentioned above, I have now reached over half of my fundraising total. At the time of writing this blog post, I have raised £645 (£781.25 including Gift Aid) - leaving just £555 to reach my target. 

What this really means is that I can reach my target if the following happens:

• 555 kind people donate £1 each.
• 111 very kind people donate £5 each.
• 55½ incredibly kind people donate £10 each.
• 27¾ super kind people donate £20 each.

I am still trying to work on some fundraising events to reduce the number of super kind people that I have to rely on, but in the meantime if anybody wants to donate anything it really will make a difference.

If anybody would like to donate but is reluctant to do so via my fundraising page (I understand that it is a bit of a faff to do, that some people prefer to avoid that there internet thing and that some people might not want to allow Gift Aid and would prefer not to publically admit to doing so), do get in touch with me and I will happily cycle to you - subject to meeting within a reasonable distance of my flat or somewhere that I am already planning to be - to collect your donation.

Shout outs
Thank you again to everybody who has sponsored me so far. A big thank you goes to Gemma for your incredibly kind donation!

If anybody else would like to sponsor me, please visit my sponsorship page at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/TomHoldaway. Any donation of any size would be hugely appreciated.

Thank you for reading!