Tour of Britain: East Anglian 100k Tour Ride

On Sunday 24th July, Abby and I took part in the East Anglian 100 kilometer challenge ride in aid of The Prostate Cancer Charity.

Then route was to take us from Diss to Sandringham. 100 kilometres of beautiful, Norfolk scenery. And it was. My I was so gutted that I had left my camera at home and my mobile phone battery has been playing up, so there is only enough charge for one call. So, no pictures I’m afraid.

The course was flat, like only East Anglia can be. Not a single challenging hill, lump or incline of any sort. But what there was plenty of was wind. I’m no weather man, but it appeared that the wind must have been coming from the north, it was in our faces all the way. It was not gale force. Just heavy enough to make me regret removing my aero-bars from my road bike.

Abby and I were on our own for pretty much the whole ride. So this meant I had to get her to sit on my wheel for the duration of the ride. I am also no expert on aerodynamics and only have partial understanding of the drafting systems that can be used when cycling. Every now and then, a pack of 8 to 10 cyclists would blast past us with ease, in a HTC train like fashion. This would give me a glimpse of where we needed to be, in our two person peloton.

At around 15 miles in, we got overtaken by some old local guy on his basket shopper bike. He was clearly on a mission and going for it! It was at this point, where my wife says “I’m not having that, lets take him down”. We did. BUT. In our efforts to take down the old boy, we missed a sign/marker. This new course was taking us towards a busy section of the A140. On arriving at the junction we met another cyclist who had missed the sign too, and after a bit of deliberation Abby and I turned back, we rejoined the route, but we had added 10 miles.

I will not lie. My mood at this point was somewhat, less than happy. I was actually considering crying off the whole thing. Our pace was a lot slower than I had planned for. We possibly could have trained more. But we soldiered on.

We got to the lunch stop, where there were plenty off cyclists scoffing bananas, malt loaf and energy bars. There was a cycle repair guy there. A lot of upturned bikes and people mending inner-tubes etc.

This is where I’d like to say the second half of the ride flew by. No. Although the scenery was magnificent. The constant battering from the wind, the extra time on the saddle were all starting to take its toll. I’ll apologise now for the lack of village name checks. Most of the time, I did not know where we were. Just very close to Painville for sure. There were also a lot of people offering advice and chat out there. It made you feel better too, knowing that, as flat as the ride was, it was not easy for anyone! I Will be looking forward to seeing the Tour of Britain guys making mincemeat of the course though come september.

As we rolled closer to 62mile/100k mark. The enjoyment  factor of the day had partially gone. We had already had good five and half hours in the saddle. Raw to say the least. There was quite a few bewildered cyclists around. All checking their GPS’s and cycle computers. “It says we’ve done 100k” but Sandringham was no where in sight. Turns out that the 100k course was actually closer to 110k. Add on to that, the extra which Abby and I took on. We hobbled over the line 80miles/130kto the good in around 6 hours and 10minutes.

The finish line was tremendous. Friends and families of the cyclist on either side of an official, Tour of Britain, finishing shoot. Banging on the boards and a guy yelling through a PA system. It did make you feel good again. I wished we had longer to enjoy the whole finish line area atmosphere, but parental duties called. My dad who had driven to Sandringham and waited patiently to pick us up. Hot-footed us back home…. Oh just remembered, he did take some pictures. I’ll try to add them in somewhere.

I didn’t want this to sound like a negative moan about the ride. I can’t stress enough how beautiful the ride was. I WILL be doing it again. I think I just needed to pay more attention to the signs and possibly worn better quality cycling shorts.

 Just want to say thanks to Customer Service Direct for the ride and the cool jersey! Moons Cycles for sorting my bike gears before my ride. Also to Zipvit for fueling the ride the gels are a god send

Sorry for waffling, thanks for reading.

Finding Balance

How do we do it? If you, like me, are an entry level Triathlete/runner. This is a question you will have asked yourself on many occasions. If you are a parent, husband or wife then this question is asked of yourself more often.
Finding the balance between training and family is an issue that has come to the fore more recently to me. I am currently training for the Brighton Marathon in April. The runs are getting longer. The training, harder. The fatigue, greater.
I work as a chef. This line of work in itself does not lend itself well to a lot of free time. It involves working split shifts (e.g. 930am-2.30 then 5.30-11pm). Throw into this three kids and a wife who also works full time…Feel my pain!
So, to my main point. Finding the balance. There is no magic cure. Only that I had to realise my ’Actual Realistic Goal’ I am not going to qualify for an Olympic marathon place. I will (probably) never qualify for Kona Ironman world championships. Doing the best I can has to include my life limiters. I don’t want my kids to resent my hobby. I love triathlon and I love running. But when they say stop or “dad I need help” I will be there. I want to get to the end of the Brighton Marathon with my legs and my family in tact. I have NO time goal.
I now try to avoid doing long training sessions while the kids are about. This means my long runs are on my (week) days off or very early morning. No more sneaky afternoon Turbo sessions. Which I don’t miss.
Until the time comes that I win the lotto. Or one of these sport companies decides to start sponsoring ’Crap’ athletes. I will have to keep working to pay my bills and for my hobby.