What is Inspired Living ?? Why ride 1,250 miles ???

I am part of a team who have set up Inspired Living which aims to show that ordinary people can do extraordinary things and small changes to diet and exercise can make a massive difference to people's health and well being.

Inspired Living has three key objectives. Firstly we want to inspire ordinary men and women to adopt healthier lifestyles to reduce their risk of contracting cancer. Secondly we will produce medical research to help in the fight against cancer. Each rider will conduct tests as they train for the ambitious continental ride. In addition we would like to raise a significant amount of money for Cancer Research UK through sponsorship and fund raising events.

On September 4th, 2010, a team of 30 volunteers will start a 2 week 1,250 miles / 2,000 kilometres cycle ride from Winchester to Gibraltar, on this first day there is also a mass ride open to everyone covering 33 miles of beautiful local countryside from Winchester to Portsmouth.

To learn more about Inspired Living visit: http://www.inspiredliving.org.uk

Friday, 30 July 2010

3 days in a row is not too bad

So far my training has consisted of a daily 6 mile commute to work on my mountain bike and longer rides on the road bike over the weekend, generally an hour or two on Saturday morning and a longer ride on Sunday - usually around 50 miles.

This is all well and good to build up my general fitness, but we will be riding 85-90 each day for 14 days, which means very little time for recovery and an emphasis on pacing and maintaining energy levels.

Putting aside the overall distance of 1,250 miles, it was this part of the continental ride I found most intimidating, anyone with a reasonable level if fitness could ride 100 miles in a day, but they would probably be quite sore and tired afterwards, could we do this day after day??

To find out just how ready we were for this challenge, last weekend the Inspired Living team planned rides on consecutive days to allow myself and other "novice" riders to get experience of back to back rides.

Thanks to routemasters Guy and Andy, we were presented with rides of 60 miles on Friday afternoon, 85 miles on Saturday and 85 miles on Sunday.

More than a dozen riders took part each day, most did at least two days, the terrain was quite hilly, generally more challenging than we will encounter on the continent. Four of us did all three days, although I admit I took a short cut at the end of Sunday due to a sore knee thanks to running too much while on holiday the week before.

A rest break in deepest Hampshire on Saturday
The lessons we had learnt from the nutritionists about constant energy intake really paid benefits - yes I know the photo shows us eating at a pub for lunch, but jelly babies do keep you going (:O)

Aside from my knee, which I think is almost fully healed up, I felt no real after effects of each ride and my confidence has taken a real boost and it was great to spend time getting to know some of the other riders.

Only 5 weeks to go until September 4th. !!!
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