One Week On - Epiblog

Firstly I can report that this will almost definitely be the final post in the LeJog Blog series of posts.  I have quite enjoyed Blogging these past few weeks so will have to think of a new topic to write about in future.

Following our arrival home last Saturday our bikes and bags arrived the day after via the slightly slower than Easyjet method of minibus.  Somehow our house had become the designated drop off point for all ten Cambourne / TTP bikes so I had quite a full garage / house which luckily no one broke into.

In an earlier post I mentioned how it had become a social norm for LeJog team mates to enquire about the state of my backside during all conversations.  I have been heartened to find that this has extended across my work colleagues, Rugby team mates and people I know down the pub, although I fully expect / hope it will go back to being an odd thing to ask over the coming weeks.

As is usual after a great sporting achievement we were inundated with requests from both local and national media outlets.  In the end we decided to give the exclusive to the Cambourne Weekly News which has a circulation rumoured to be in the tens of hundreds  (as long as you include the myriad copies dumped by the allotments in circulation figures.)

This being the last post I should reflect on what I have learned from the trip, I think the main things are:

- Cornwall is chuffing hilly.

- The scenery in between Bristol and Carlisle (ish) is not all that.

- The scenery in Scotland is all that.

- Scotland is cold

- 30 miles should never realistically be prefaced by the word 'just' unless in a car.

- Cycling is ace.

A little more on that final point.  Back at work on Monday Brendan and I had a chat at the coffee machine and both agreed that we missed being on our bikes, I wonder if we are suffering from some sort of cycling Stockholm syndrome?  

Those readers that are cyclists will be familiar with the website www.strava.com, for those that are not it is a website you can use it to track your rides and see how you measure up against other riders who, both randoms and your friends.  Each month Strava runs an MTS (monthly training schedule) which records you total mileage over the month.  Generally 4 - 500 miles will see you in the top 10,000 out of around 175,000 participants.  During the LeJog trip we made it into the top 500 (the top 200 are generally mentalists who are on Forrest Gump style runs but using bikes.)

Even more impressively Clare was at one point ranked 35th for distance amongst all female Strava users in the world!

Today I went for a ride of 'just' 20 miles, the outing had two purposes:

i)  Make me feel I had achieved something today beyond watching the Japanese Grand Prix and many Rugby matches.

ii) Push my monthly mileage total over 1000 miles!  (previous pb 805 miles last month)

The third purpose which I forgot to mention above was to see if all that time on the bike had paid any cycling dividends when I picked my pace back up.  The answer was yes for the first 14 miles or so my legs felt unstoppable and I set a new PB up a local hill, I say hill it was more of a slight slope but we call them hills in Cambs.  Then the dreaded bottom cramp struck which slowed me down a bit, but overall I think a decent results.

Now the final in the occasional 'you know when you have been cycling too much when' series, which covers cycle gear defined tan lines.  Best shown by the following pictures.  Actually when I remove my shirt before bed the effect is better and it looks like I am wearing a somewhat hairy white t-shirt but I don't think the internet is ready for that picture.

I have also developed sort of an extra bit of leg muscle down the front of my knees which must be bike related as it wasn't there before.  

I thought my new found fitness would help me on the Rugby pitch yesterday, turns out that running uses different muscles to cycling so whilst fitness was up so was massive pain in the legs, we still won 96: 24 thanks for asking.

To conclude this post and possibly this blog a few people have said "oh we meant to sponsor you and didn't get round to it," well it's not too late, the following link to my just giving page explains why I chose to ride for Prostate Cancer Research and why it is a cause very close to my heart:

www.justgiving.com/bigbensbike

Everyone has been incredibly generous and I am very very close to reaching my fundraising target.  If you have not donated yet please do so and help Prostate Cancer Research.

Thank you all for reading over and out!