Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Update - Off road roading!

BELATED UPDATE!!!

I realise it's been a while since either Matt or I wrote something - this was highlighted to me by Saz - probably the only person actually reading this (our one fan :p). SO this is for you.

So I was meant to write this last week and it's going to be a bit of a historical blog but Matt has been aviating all week, cycling on the non-flyable days, and I've been rubbish. Anyway, last Monday was a bank holiday and I left very early to meet a friend for a bike ride around Goring. So as I'm ready with all my lycra on - Simon (old school friend) gets off the train rocking the shagged out London bike look - I could see this was going to be a great day.

We headed out on the roads - some stunning straight Roman roads round that part and we decided to go along a lovely hilly B road. Whilst managing to annoy probably every motorist in the area that day but riding side by side catching up on life events from the last few months said road quickly turned to gravel - not great for a roadie. Which subsequently turned to exposed flint where I not only had a very sore nether region after a just minute but also was the only roadie on a predominantly off-road. Having said that, I took great pleasure in beasting past people with full suspension.

See below for evidence, of the ride not the sore bits.

Picture showing the Didcot power station in the background.

My chum Simon

The "road" that was the ridgeway. 

After all that we stopped off at an amazing pub for refreshments in the form of some local ale and an incredible sandwich. 

Giving the groin a rest for an hour meant I could enjoy the descent that we had been building to for the last hour. It last just a minute, something I'm used to, but managed to pick up such speed I clocked 38 mph - but Strava says more like 32. Regardless it was quick. 

We totaled only around 45km's but it was great to catch up with an old mate of mine.

Think we are going to get back to the usual training routine with spinning and bike rides in the evenings and longer rides on the weekend. All of which will be stepping up gradually as we come to the end of the first month of training.

Fundraising is also going to get a boot up the arse. Hopefully Matt and I will start organising events. More to follow on that though.

Ali

Monday, May 18, 2015

Week 1 complete!!!

WEEK 1 COMPLETE!!!!

So Team MAli has finished the first official training week. On the whole both of us have stuck to the routine. Spinning, running, out on the bike twice with a total of 90km ridden this week alone (65km on Saturday). Not a bad start although I am definitely going to have to be careful with my knackered knees. I could feel them going to the end of the ride.

For my weekly routines I think it's going to be spin classes, running and cycling on two of the days  per week. I think Matt is turbo-ing and cycling most days. From looking at Strava he had a good day out on Sunday - I was recovering from going to the evening of Ben and Rach's wedding where all the alcohols were drunk.

Actually the ride on Saturday was great. Beautiful day for it - yes I probably should have been flying but I needed to get out on the bike. I also trialed one of the carb gel sachets. I can conclusively state that they are revolting. Possibly buying 20 before trying them may have been a mistake but as all the hot cyclists have them I thought they couldn't be that bad... how wrong I was. The consistency is likened to when one has a heavy cold...

Anyway - see pics below from the ride.

Ali


Stunning little cottage hidden away.

Picture taken whilst getting my bearings.

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Week 1!

So it's Week 1 of the official 12 week Training Plan!

I've gone for the 'Intermediate Plan' which you can see below:


It means getting out on the bike 4 times a week which is a bit of a step up from the 2 sessions a week I've been doing over the winter. The first 4 weeks looks pretty kushty in terms of pushing the limits but I'm already dreading the longer rides that the plan has in store for the weeks after. Pretty stupidly I've trained my body to endure about an hour on the turbo (anything more is boring) so I'm fairly sure it's going to shut down on me when the rides start pushing 4-5 hours.

The weather this week has been pretty banging so I've been out for two evening rides already. Found some awesome scenery exploring north of Reading. Think I'm going to have a lot of fun in the Chilterns over the next few months.





I'm hoping to fit in a turbo session tomorrow even though it's a rest day as I'm buggering about with gliders this weekend so not sure how much cycling time I'll get. Anyway, here's my week so far with the Strava links:

Monday: 42.4km - 1:34 - 27.1kph
Tuesday: Rest day. Ate some cake.
Wednesday: 40.5km - 1:26 - 28.3kph

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Tuesdays evening ride - 25 miles

Hi all,

So on Tuesday morning - whilst sleepy on the train - Matt text me asking whether he should bring his bike with him to work as he was going to be in the area. Sweet, otherwise we weren't going to ride together for another week. 

Plan was formed and I pinched a route from a mate (cheers Rach). It was already getting dark once I got back from work so it was decided to do a quick hour and a half ride so that we could actually see where we were going.

 See picture below before we hit the road - all smiles... mostly.


Anyway, we ended up having a great little ride down to Alresford as as out and return. Some good roads and hills to get the heart going. Definitely going to go all the way and go to Winchester soon - only doubling the ride length.

In total we did 24.4 miles at an average of 17.2 mph - Matt does everything in metric so this should wind him up... perfect.

See below for the Strava link.


Let the training and the charitable giving continue. Thanks everyone - it's for a great cause.

Ali

Monday, April 20, 2015

Training begins

A little over 3 months to go now which means that Ali and I really need to crack on with our training. Ali mentioned that I've been on a turbo trainer a lot. I don't gym so I try and get on it a couple of times a week to do get some exercise in my life. I've got a pretty decent set up in my house with my own bike room...


Now the weather's getting nice and the nights longer I'm trying to get out on the road at least one night a week after work. I'm going to combine these rides with high intensity turbo sessions and longer rides at the weekend to hopefully get me into shape for August!

If you want to follow what I'm up to then here's my Strava profile: https://www.strava.com/athletes/322104.

And here's Ali's: https://www.strava.com/athletes/1851203.

Hopefully we'll have plenty to keep you updated about over the next few months!

Thursday, March 19, 2015

It begins!!!!

Training has started - But what for??

As some of you may know, Matt and I have decided to cycle the London Ride 100, a stupidly long (100 miles - hence the name) bicycle race that goes through the Surrey countryside and ends up with us finishing down the Mall in central London. Wonderful I hear you say, well I hope so, and I hope we raise lots of awareness and money for the WWF (World Wildlife Fund - not the Wrestling)

So this is the first blog on what is going to be a fairly specific thing - Matt and I (Ali) getting fitter, faster and arguably sorer in the nether regions - all in aid of a good cause - the possibility of cuddling a Panda, wait, I mean raising awareness and money for arguably a fantastic cause. I say arguably, some of you out there aren't animal lovers.

There will be times where we are grumpy, cold (already happened), shed tears and blood, hopefully not too much/ at all. But we really want this to be something that people get follow and behind us, whilst we ramp up the training, the time and effort, all too finally compete and do well in a bicycle race. I'm sure the journey is going to be interesting so i'll try and blog it all with pictures.

So after all that - the first training ride. It's been a horrible winter and most of us have been in hibernation - I went abroad and followed the sun. Matt has by watching him zoom off into the distance on our first ride, been on his turbo-trainer (a bike version of the treadmill) and has become super fast so there is a lot of catching up to do.

Anyway, I Strava'd it all and it was a horrible, extremely cold morning out on Saturday, 14th March 2015. I'm sure I'll find out a way to just save it as a picture but if you are interested, this is what we did. Please use the link below.

Our first training ride!!!!

You'll see that it wasn't entirely quick but some highlights were not knowing where we were for 100% of the ride, bypassing a load of school children on their Duke of Edinburgh Awards walk and after we took a wrong turn, Matt having to keep me focused i.e. not allowing me to see some local English Heritage sites (I do love a good castle) and the half hour drive home still absolutely frozen.

But it's a start and hopefully it'll only get better.

Anyway, that's enough for now.

Ali out!

P.s if you would like to donate to our charity page, please follow the link:
www.virginmoneygiving.com/team/MAliPandamonium