Thursday 21st July 2022, 111.32km, 1,106m

Today I had Hywel join for the day. He’d driven to Hereford the previous evening and was going to head back on the train from Shrewsbury. We met for breakfast and he’d already met quite a lot of the riders and all the guys from Pedal Britain.

Getting out of Hereford was the usual mix of traffic, traffic lights and longing for the country lanes that would come.

The morning brew stop was at a very picturesque spot in Pembridge. I am finding a nice cup of tea is a perfect drink after a couple of hours on the bike.

Leaving the brew stop I ran over a pigeon! This was a surreal moment, I expected it to move and it didn’t.

Today was a much cooler day, almost perfect cycling conditions and we made Hywel work for his day out; he sat on the front for long parts of it.

Despite being an ”easier” day we still covered 111km and over 1000m of climbing. Easy is a very relative term when riding LEJOG.

As we got closer to Shrewsbury the group split as most were heading to the local bike shop to get various squeaks fixed or worn out parts replaced. Hywel and I headed to the hotel where Darren was still trying to check us all in despite already having been there for an hour and a half.

A cancelled later train meant Hywel had to dash to get the train but it had been great to see him and have him along for the day.

The route took us over a small bridge that reminded me very much of the one in Pitlochry. It certainly bounced around as much as that one.

Today was the last day that Darren would be with us. He’d stayed while the weather was hot to add an extra pair of hands, and an extra vehicle, making sure we had enough water and could stay hydrated. We said our goodbyes after dinner. It’s the Les and Brian show from now on.

Dinner was at a lovely pizza restaurant called Dough & Oil. Today was the first day without a pre-booked table so the group were free to do their own thing. Myself, James, Ian, Imogen, Vicky & Ryan all chose the pizza place; it was a good choice.

Wednesday 20th July 2022, 135.19km, 1,564m

Another uphill start to the day but it does get the legs warmed up. Today was going to be a day of iconic places and bridges. First up was Cheddar Gorge. One of only two climbs on the trip that feature in the UK’s top 100 climbs this was the one I was looking forward to. It is stunning to look at as you climb up through the gorge although the couple of steep corners take you breath away for a completely different reason. As it goes on it gets gradually easier but seems to go on forever.

After the morning brew stop we were onto the second of the day’s highlights, the Clifton Suspension Bridge. I found it very amusing that there is a tiny section of bike path to bypass the toll barriers and we all stopped to take pictures and admire the view and the drop down to the river and road below.

Onwards through Clifton heading towards Wales via the Severn Bridge. A closed road added a diversion but we were soon at the old bridge that used to carry the M4 to Wales. On the approach Jasmine had been sitting on the front when she flicked her elbow to say she wanted me to take over. She is such a good bike rider and this really amused me, it was a mini highlight of the day; someone who really knows about bike riding flicking the elbow.

I was disappointed not to see a Welcome to Wales sign, particularly as I’d have liked to photograph it!

More rain after lunch and then riding along the Wye Valley. At this point my Garmin decided to die and I had to quickly start Strava on my watch to capture the rest of the ride.

The afternoon’s brew stop was at the top of a slight rise. This gave Stefan a chance to be the first up the hill until Martin unleashed Jasmine. She tore after him and easily beat him to the top.

Bizarrely the shop in St Weonards has a LEJOG signpost.

We were obviously taking a backroads route to Hereford as we were the opposite way to the road signs at least 3 times but it did mean we reached the hotel without having to cycle in a lot of traffic.

Today was a great day, we had a great group of riders again and saw some amazing sights.

In the hotel bar before dinner the sight of an ice frosted glass for Heineken made that the most popular drink.

Tuesday 19th July 2022, 133.30km, 1,352m

Rolling out of Mortenhampstead on day 3 I think we were all a little naive about what awaited us. The first couple of minutes were a gentle downhill and then it got serious. 2.9km and 130m of climbing before we’d really got warmed up. Worse was to come after the morning brew stop as the road pitched up to over 20% on a climb that is now just referred to as ”the climb”. This one was a beast, the only good thing was that yesterday’s heat had gone and it was now just a pleasantly warm day. We made good pace to lunch.

Lunch at the York Inn was great, Cornish pasties went down a treat but as we set off it started to rain. Still too warm to go for the rain jacket into the rain we rode. It was lovely, particularly because the roads were quiet and we could just roll along with the rain cooling us down. I was now in my happy place and was quite happy to sit on the front.

Like most things on this ride, this was not to last. As we approached Glastonbury we rode back into the heat. It suddenly got oppressively hot again and I could feel my fatigue growing. It is a horrible feeling when this happens, it’s a case of just keep turning the pedals.

Wells provided some much needed rest from pedalling as we admired the Cathedral and the Bishop’s House and posed for the group selfie. We weren’t far from the finish now and I was very grateful to see the Wookey Hole hotel.

I felt terrible once the ride was complete. I really struggled to eat at dinner and ended up making my excuses and heading back to the hotel in need of sleep. I was hoping I was just suffering a bit after another hot end to the day and would feel better in the morning.

Monday 18th July 2022, 111.97km, 1,904m

An early start to the day as there were 2 ferries to catch before lunch. The morning was a nice temperature and relatively calm for the first couple of hours. It wasn’t long before we were climbing again and then descending through some narrow country lanes and then descending very quickly to the brew stop at Looe.

After a fast descent the road has to go up again (it’s the rule on LEJOG…what goes down must go back up). Climbing out of Looe I found myself on the wheel of John from the US. We rode until the next ferry together; he’s 73 and a retired architect. We came across a great sign “No through road, your sat nav is lying”. I wonder how many people had driven down that track before realising that something wasn’t right.

The second ferry crossing of the day took us to Plymouth and the lunch break. From here it was a gradual climb to the start of Dartmoor along the Plym Valley. We’re still not sure where we went wrong but we found ourselves walking our bikes through some woods before we found tarmac again. We’d also formed a nice little group; myself, Martin, Jasmine, Vicky, James, Paul & Stef. It was great riding with other people and chatting about the ride and commenting on how hot it was getting. Thankfully, the trail was pretty shady but that was about to change.

Once off the trail and onto the road we were in full sun and it was hot. The heat was physically draining and I was exhausted by the time we got to the afternoon brew stop. I sat in the open door of the van with my eyes closed for about 5 minutes. Looking back we could see how far we’d climbed but knew the climbing wasn’t over.

A long brew stop meant the rest of the group had left before I was ready to go but eventually I got back on the bike and set off. There were still hills to climb but there were also descents to fly down. I love descending so this became fun with occasional interruptions as the road headed upwards again.

In the shady garden outside the hotel I tried to drink a pint with Vicky, John & Olivia but as soon as it hit my stomach I felt like it might come straight back up again. A pint of water was a much better idea.

This was without doubt the hardest day’s riding I’d ever done. The heat was stifling and climbing over 1900m in the heat was draining. However, the toughest day is now done.

Sunday 17th July 2022, 96.06km, 1,510m

An early breakfast followed by a short taxi ride to Land’s End to collect our bikes and have the obligatory photo with the famous signpost. Last check of tyres, make sure the course was loaded onto the Garmin and we were off.

The road to Penzance was described as undulating. This seems to be code for “never flat”! The first few miles sped by and we were soon back in Penzance and cycling along a lovely coastal path to the first brew stop. The brew stop is a marvellous thing, good cups of tea and so much food. Fruit, nuts, crisps, jelly babies, malt loaf, fig rolls, biscuits, oat bars, everything a cyclist might need to keep the pedals turning. I was one of the last to leave and set off into the headwind at a comfortable pace. I soon caught some of the others up and rode for a while with a couple from Florida just having a chat about riding on ”the wrong side of the road”. Sticking with anyone was quite hard as everyone rides at their own pace on the hills and there were a lot of hills. Given the headwind and the heat the choice seemed to be a) up hill into block headwind or b) up a hedge lined hill in a sauna.

As we approached the lunch spot I was starting to feel it as I’d run out of water a few kms earlier despite leaving the brew stop with 2 full bottles. Lunch was at Linden Hey Garden Tea Rooms. This is a lovely little place with the most wonderful hosts, nothing was too much trouble. By lunch we’d travelled just over 60km but already climbed 850m. I was starting to be less enthusiastic about descents than normal, they just meant I’d be facing another climb.

From lunch another hill and then down to the King Harry Ferry, one of only 5 chain operated ferries in the UK. Straight after the ferry is a steep climb, the first of many scattered across the afternoon. Coming off the ferry I missed my pedal and knocked my saddle nose down. Despite multiple attempts to get it level again I couldn’t quite get it right. The afternoon was a pretty much solo session, riding at my own pace and spinning up the hills. The sting in the tail was the 2km 6% climb to the hotel, it had a couple of ramps just to add to the fun and I have never been happier to see a Premier Inn.

An amazing first day. I can’t quite believe I’ve started this adventure.

I let the train take the strain for the trip to Cornwall. The hotel is literally around the corner from the train station so no taxi needed. 3 of the other riders were on the train so I got to meet Stefan, Paul and Mark coming out of the station. Darren was in the hotel to meet us as was Grant. It was great to finally meet him and talk about the training plan he’d put together for me. He gave me some interesting advice about watching my heart rate. If it goes up and doesn’t come down then I’m likely dehydrated and need to drink more; conversely if it’s low and doesn’t go up then it’s a sign I’m overly fatigued and need an easy day.

We had our first briefing of the trip this evening. Lots of common sense advice as well as some good tips (turn off auto-reroute on our Garmins).

We also got given our Pedal Britain cycling jerseys. I should know not to pay too much attention to the sizing guides for cycling kit. My M jersey was absolutely tiny; thankfully I’ll be able to exchange it in the morning.

This week has been a tapering week; 3 short pretty easy rides with decreasing numbers of intervals at 80% of FTP. Feels like I’ve just been turning my legs over to keep them used to pedalling.

The week has dragged, I just want to get going now.

The amazing thing is that the donations to charity, either through JustGiving or the system at work, topped £2500 this week. I am so grateful to everyone that donated. Thank you all.

The last week of hard training and the most interrupted week since I signed up for LEJOG. Last week ended with a toothache that turned out to be an infected wisdom tooth. Cue 5 days of antibiotics and then having the tooth taken out on Wednesday. This meant no training for a couple of days to allow the extraction site to start to heal.

I am finding the sessions since my FTP increased much harder, especially the VO2Max sessions. My coach is very encouraging; whenever I think I’ve not performed as well as I should he tells me I smashed it. I think that some of the sessions are meant to be too hard and I just need to do my best even if that means I don’t hit every interval.

It was good to get out on the bike at the weekend. I cannot see me riding at anything like the pace I went at on Saturday or Sunday on the LEJOG ride itself but it’s good to know I have the power there to call on.

A week of tapering and then it begins. I just want to get on with it now.

I am using the ride to raise some money for Mind, the mental health charity. I wanted to do it for them as I’ve struggled with my mental health on and off for over a decade and still take daily medication and regularly see a therapist. Part of my condition is a constant feeling of not being good enough and being overly critical of myself. Most of the time I can keep that negative voice in check but it just needs a chink to get into my head. Monday’s session gave it that chink.

It was designed to be a hard session; a ramp session starting above threshold for 2 minutes, 10 minutes at threshold then increasing by 10W every minute until I couldn’t keep going. The 2 minute interval was hard but the 10 minute one, which should have been tough but ok, was harder than I expected. I managed to do 5 of the ramps (out of a possible 10) and finished feeling quite disappointed. My left knee felt stiff, my quads were sore and the negativity began. Am I really in the shape to do this ride, what if I have problems with my knee during the ride, how will I handle doing more climbing than I’ve ever done before? The reality is that the session was ok; I set my 2nd best 20 minute power and my 3rd best 10 minute power. Both of these will be important when it comes to the climbs. Keeping hold of the reality of the situation is vitally important now. The next 2 weeks are going to be tough physically, I need to be strong mentally as well.

The rest of this week’s sessions were really hard. A long VO2Max session got interrupted by a phone call and I ended up cutting it short and a 10x30s interval session was incredibly tough.

Some good news from the coach this week helped to combat some of the negativity that was creeping in. My power numbers are all up, my resistance to fatigue has improved as has my short burst “battery”. The sessions may feel like they are pushing me beyond what I can do but they appear to be having results.

For the weekend endurance ride I tried something different. Rather than having my power being on screen the whole time I just set out to ride my bike but at a slightly higher intensity than I would if I were just going out for a spin. At the same time it wasn’t an all out push myself hard effort. On a similar course to last week I ended up being slightly faster, with a slightly higher average power. Plus I felt like I’d been riding my bike and not just doing a workout session. A win-win.

3 interval sessions this week. The first one was a repeat of the first session I did as part of the training; the one that I wasn’t mentally prepared for and suffered in. This time I was ready for it! It was still hard but at least this time I expected it to be.
The other two sessions were a mix of 30s on/15s off and then 30s on/30s off. These all seem to follow the same pattern, the first interval in each set feels ok, but the 10th interval is a case of “push push push” to complete it. I’ve found them slightly easier if I visualise them as ramps on a hill rather than an interval.
I also talk to myself quite a lot, reenforcing why I’m doing the training and how amazing the ride will be. I’m sure anyone listening would think I’d completely lost the plot!

The weekend sessions were an endurance session and a sweetspot session. The latter was hampered by the strong wind on Sunday; it’s hard to get a consistent power level when the wind is blowing the bike around. I sometimes just want to ride my bike rather than looking at my head unit and the power output display but have to tell myself that time will come in 3 weeks.