7 weeks, 2 days, 1 hour and counting!

The Kenya crew, plus Kate and Rachel.

Yesterday we did the Great Shakespeare 100km challenge ride, as a sort of training exercise for Cuba. The FH decided to give it a miss this year, so it was just Kate and me driving up to Stratford on Saturday afternoon for an early Sunday start. Missed him being there, but he must have had prescience! What chaos…

We hung the bikes on the back of the car, Kate left her dogs with various sitters, we stuffed all our belongings in and trundled off for what should have been a simple 3 hour drive up. We were so well prepared!! Ha.

On BOTH sides of the motorway there were burning vehicles [incredible], so the resultant traffic jam added 45 minutes to the trip. It was like being in a Mad Max film…at 2 miles per hour. Thank goodness we packed snacks! The bike rack became a bit rackety, so we pulled off, sorted it and and set off again. Two minutes after getting back onto the motorway I felt like someone was stubbing our their cigarette on the back of my thigh! More pulling off [rather FRANTICALLY] only to discover that a rather large red ant [apparently this was the Police speed enforcement ant] had crawled onto my dress at the sort-out-the-bike-rack stop, and was merrily biting the hell out of me! Suffice to say he died and we sallied forth once more into the breach!

Stopped for a coffee at Strensham Services – OMG!! All the Walmart people were there! 8 coach loads of them! Suffice to say we made a very swift rush to the Costa coffee, where we were served something rather resembling mud in a giant cardboard soup bowl. Rushed out into the car park, and in the frenzy to unlock the car before we were beamed up, I and managed to pop the boot, to which the cycle rack is attached. To open and slam it we’d have had to remove bikes and rack…never going to happen at this point. So we drove the rest of the way with the ‘your boot is open, fool!’ light on. By this point we actually didn’t care. We finally arrived at my friend Loraine’s lovely house in the Cotswolds at about 8.30. In one piece, astoundingly enough…

We had a fab dinner provided by Loraine and a catch up and all got to bed at quite a reasonable hour. Up at 6.00 to leave for the start, toast, coffee and bananas for brekkie then Loraine backed into me in the drive! Luckily just a scuff [bring out the T-Cut] and after a bit of manoeuvring we were off.

Met up with the Crew at the hotel where the cycle starts, everyone was rather jolly, and we were all looking forward to the days ride.

LITTLE DID WE KNOW! For some reason the day was torturous. Cycling into a head wind most of the time, which sort of takes the fun out of it. Instead of whizzing down hills, one cycles down them...at 9 miles per hour. Frustrating. And tiring.

Plus 5 million miles of wheat fields and cute cottages make one a tad disoriented…being in the Cotswolds for too long makes one feel like one has taken a hallucinogenic drug…

Kate and I decided to do The Hill – Larkspur...it’s horrible. No idea what we were thinking. It’s a 21% grade as far as I can remember. I was going so slowly that when a car came down I fell off into a hedge and have some lovely scratches to show for it. Thanks very much to the woman who raced by me shouting ‘get out of the way’ – which I tried to do and fell backwards. But she didn’t stop to see if I had died or not. Probably just as well, as I was a tad peeved at that point! Could have been messy…

Note to Cotswolds people – it’s FAR too cute there, and your roads are terrible! Full of holes and strewn with gravel. And cyclists heh heh

Kate keeled over at the second feed stop, a victim of stuffing far too much cake and bread at the first one. So we lounged about there for a while while she recovered, smoking and drinking coffee, supplied by the amazing ladies who, every year, are there smiling and supplying fab grub to over 600 cyclists.

We finally lost the will to cycle after some fellow told us there were only 4 km to go, when actually there were still 12 to go! Met up with one of the other Cuba girls and we had a Team Spazz Out, then a mad jelly baby scoffing attack, girded our loins and got going – to find we only had another corner then it was 400 yards to the finish! Total disorientation.

But even with all the delays and chaos, I still beat my time from last year by half an hour, so it’s not all bad! Plus we DID drive for 8 hours, sleep for 5 and then cycle for 6. I’d say that’s a good training day, as we were still functioning this morning!

The Great Shakespeare Cycle is the best organised cycle we’ve done. This is the third year I’ve done it. I forget how hard it is each time. It’s so well organised, you get your time chip, excellent food, go out like the Tour and the marshalling and signage are brilliant. I’d recommend anyone to do it, plus it raises funds for an excellent charity.

If we do it again though, it’ll be a full weekend job, so we can rest before and afterward! Only 7 weeks to go until Cuba! So next weekend we will be mainly cycling up and down hills! In DEVON!

the 400km cycle – entry 03

Back to the Moleskine again where my hand writing seems to have become more indecipherable every day:

"Ye Gods…up at 5.30! To cycle 99km! Yikes. Breakfast at 6.00 [my gut did not take kindly to this at all!] – fab buffet of all sorts of cooked things, plus fruit, bread, cake and coffee + tea. The coffee was AMAZING. Here we all are, I must say we look amazingly AWAKE!

Out to start warming up at 7.00. A publicity shot with Safaricom, who paid for our cycle shirts. They were lovely – most impressed with us doing the cycle. And really INTERESTED. Hoping to get the shots the chap from the newspaper took.

We cycled off at 7.30, stopping for breaks and to eat popcorn, crisps and biscuits every now and then, and most importantly to fill up with water. I've never drunk so much water in my life, and was very grateful for the Camelbak, even though it weighs a bit. Today was a rush, as the planning went slightly awry, and some of the girls were bundled into the bus to catch up to the rest. They were MOST put out about it, and un-bundled themselves as fast as they could. No-one wanted to be in the bus unless they HAD to. There were hills, and more hills. No WAY I am going to describe it other than to say it was UPward all the way. And hot. And exhausting.

Lunch was brilliant – our ground crew cooked it for us on Calor gas bottles. Then we had a visit from some cute little school kids so we could offload some of the TON of stuff we'd all brought for them. Eventually I think it was split between 4 schools instead of the original one which was planned. Thanks to everyone who donated kids things – they were delighted. They did a song and a little dance for us, everyone in wellingtons due to the rain. Here they all are shooting back to school, hopefully to get their little hands on some goodies!

Second half of the day was gruelling [the first half was too, but I started to run out of hilariousness after lunch!]. The altitude started to give us headaches [lots of delving into the drug supplies we all brought] and the exhaustion was making us all very emotional. The hills were unbelievable, long hard elevations, and HOT. Africa is drenched in our sweat and tears. But we made it! But no amount of UK training could have prepared us for those hills.

We crossed the Equator quite a few times! The FH thinks they plant those signs randomly on the landscape to trick tourists ;)

Thank God I did the training I DID do, or it would have been awful. Thanks to the FH shoving me out on the bike at regular intervals, I was astounded at myself, because although it was hard, I managed. And that's all I needed to do.

Tonight we stopped at Thompsons Falls Lodge. Again, long pre-dinner chat to buck us all up, great buffet meal and early to bed. Yet more packing, unpacking, losing things, finding them – REPACKING them – shriek! Never, ever mention the words 'duffle bag' to me again. Bloody horrific piece of luggage that eats one's belongings. Put out our cycle gear for the morning and collapsed.

Another 5.30 start tomorrow! groan."

At Thompsons Falls. Me, Michelle, Lou, Vick, Nicky, Maz [the maker of hilarious animal sounds],  Anita and Helen.

The Falls before breakfast the next day.

and thank you Steve!

hello Carol :) thank you for reminding me to post – and for reminding me WHY I should post – to let everyone who cares know I am still here, and all you cancery types – I am still beating it's ass. Too right I am. So far, so good.

my friend Steve Turner, whom I haven't seen for years [but I hope to see soon!], donated a great big huge tile cutting machine to sell for my Women v Cancer fund. It is worth £500. We sold it today for £325.00! That was the minimum we would accept, and some fellow bought it through the Riviera Tile & Bathrooms Facebook site. Way to go!! My new total will show up on the Justgiving site soon. Here's the beast!

In the meantime, I am cycling. A lot. Practice or training – whatever. Both involve hills!I I bought a machine for my bike to tell me how fast [slow!] I am going. It's brilliant! Average speed, time etc. But it's exhausting. The cycling.

I so hope I succeed in Kenya.

madness!

One of the horrible hills on the Force ride.

well, we've really done it now! In order to prepare for the Women v Cancer Kenya cycle, I need 'saddle time'. And training. The training weekend we did in the Cotswolds was great, so some of us from the first cycle have decided to get together again in August for the Great Shakespeare Ride. There is a £20 registration fee for the 100km ride, and any other time I'd have asked for sponsorship for the hospice, but not this year. People have been more than generous already and I really want to keep my friends :)

So – back to the latest insanity. The elevations look horrendous! In particular, Lark Stoke Hill, which is apparently a single track with a poor surface, a 1 in 7 (15%) average for around 1 and a half miles. SHRIEK!! The hardest hill we did in the Cotswolds was a 12% gradient and it nearly killed me.

BUT the entire ride is only 1 km more than the longest cycle we do from Nyeri to Nyahururu [approx.99km cycling] on the 3rd day in Kenya, so it'll be fantastic to succeed at this. A lot of this cycling lark seems to be to do with your mental attitude? If we think we can do it, we will do it? That's my theory and I'm sticking to it. The longest I've ever cycled has been the Force 50 mile, and on mountain bikes it was a struggle. But we did it [yes, I am quite proud of myself actually!]

So we're all booked up to go. We have accommodation at one of the Women v Cancer cyclists homes, which will be entertaining, as quite a few peeps are camping in her garden. Personally I detest camping, so I have booked a nice, comfy bed for us a very reasonable price. The FH took a bit of persuading, but as some of the other women's other halves are also coming, he's IN! yay! My ever reliable back up. And Vicky – who, being a youngster, is camping?!

The next post will show the route – it's impossible to embed it in WLW, so unfortunately I am going to have to post it using Blogger's posting thing – which crashes every 3 minutes and is quite irritating! Check it out [if I succeed!]