Out of Time

With only 36 hours to go until the start of the Coast to Coast in a Day ride I have now officially run out of time for training. I figured this would be a good time to review all of the activity that has gone into getting me to this point, and to sum up what I have learned from the experience.

The Training

Do I think I have done enough training? I think I have done almost as much training as I could have hoped to have done. I'm not sure my marriage could have taken much more. Here are the totals since I started on this challenge last July.

I have to admit that I lost a few sessions to apathy and bad weather, and some were taken by illness. However, I did manage to get in some quality long rides, including 150 miles on the CFC 150 Sportive. I never got anywhere near the climbing target for the Coast to Coast, around 13,000ft, so that is still an unknown challenge. Here is a summary of the distance, climb and duration of all of my training rides.

I would certainly advise trying to weave your training rides into your other commitments, like riding to family events instead of driving. Either that or be prepared for some very early starts.

Of all the drills and exercises I have tried I think hill repeats are my favourite, followed by low cadence work to build leg strength. I am most certainly not a fan of rollers, no matter how I tried to alleviate the boredom. Cycling is about getting out and exploring and I am not looking forward to trying to maintain fitness through the winter.

The Equipment

So what happened to my £1000 budget. A quick summation shows that I have actual done quite well.

Item	Cost
Bike	£350
Upgrades	£312.29
Clothing	£236.46
Equipment	£61.47
Total	£960

There were several items I received as gifts, for birthday's and Christmas, and these came to around £200 in addition to the above. I'm not counting these in the total though. I'm also not counting consumables like food, transport or degreaser as these would exist in my life anyway.

So can you go on big cycling adventures on the cheap. Well, if you consider £960 over 12 months to be cheap then yes. I had to make some compromises and avoid obvious upgrades like new wheels but I have a bike I am happy with and which I am going to hopefully ride across the country, and on many more adventures.

The Body

What impact has this had on me physically? Well, I started off from quite a good place as I've always been fairly fit and active, but dragging myself over Wrynose Pass, mostly on foot, showed that I was nowhere near being a good cyclist. My first ascent of Kingston Hill (0.7m, 355ft) involved three submissions and a fall, but I now use it for hill repeats and will happily do it 4 times in a session.

I'm 1.81m tall and weighed around 82kg when I started the challenge. I am now just under my target of 75kg and I have in no way been eating to train. At most I have been sticking to just one chocolate bar on rest days instead of my usual two. Putting in long miles is a great way to burn calories and I have certainly altered my body shape in a noticeable way.

At the finish of the CFC 150. An impossible distance when I started

My only regret is that I now have pathetic upper body strength and I didn't do enough work on my core. This would probably be a great target for me to work on over the winter to come back even stronger next spring. I could probably eat more healthily as well but life is too short for that.

One thing I have certainly learned is how much you have to look after yourself as the mileage increases. I have been lucky to avoid any serious injury but I have been caught out by some horrible colds when I started to push over 100 miles. Before rides I have learned to take things easy and a post ride stretch and good eating is a habit I am really trying to catch.

Was It Worth It?

Even if I don't finish the Coast to Coast this has been an excellent adventure. I've met some great people (online and for real), learned a lot about cycle maintenance, got myself into great shape and had some wonderful trips out in the English countryside. Yes, there have been dark nights on the rollers and long painful hours in the saddle (shoulder pain is my constant companion it seems) but it has been brilliant.

Hopefully with my arrival in Whitby I can relax more and start to enjoy cycling with my family, or with friends, without an eye on this weekend's challenge. Plans are already being whispered for a week long adventure (maybe a ride to Barcelona!) and even my cycling widow wife seems keen on some cycle touring. I'm certainly keen to keep things going and will be out on the bike as soon as possible.

Finally, I'm taking the chance to use the Coast to Coast ride to raise money for Great Ormond Street. I've never really done the charity ride thing before but seeing how generous people can be based on a crazy adventure has got to inspire future plans for something even bigger. This, and a growing interest in Audax riding is certainly going to keep my legs turning for a long time yet.