That's it then...

The final weekend’s training done. Now just the small matter of riding 2,300 miles in 20 stages in 22 days. Have I done enough? Not sure, only time will tell, but I know there’s little more that I could have done without divorce or redundancy, especially given the winter we had. Importantly, by the time I leave next week, I’ll be only a couple of hundred miles short of the stretch target of 3,000 miles that I set myself in the middle of March. And I’ve now done 13 century rides this year, which is 10 more than I did in training for the Etape in 2008, and overall I’ll have done 50% more mileage than I did in the 4 month lead-up to that event. And (because it looks further in kilometres than miles), by the time I leave for the start-line, I’ll have ridden over 6,000km this year. Please please let that be enough training.

Of course it’s not just being fit that counts – as I have found out this week to a small extent. Having been surrounded by the diseased at home and work for the last 3 weeks, I started to feel a bit rough myself during the week. Nothing serious, just a sore throat, achy bones and tiredness. 3 nights of broken sleep on the floor of a tent and several beers the wrong side of sensible probably didn’t help matters either. But anyway, not enough to keep me off the bike, so I still completed both planned century rides this weekend. However, for the first time in a while, I didn’t feel particularly strong and my legs were definitely not up to much on the steeper stuff. So I actually got distanced on a couple of the hills on Sunday which really hurt my pride, as I’m usually one of the better climbers. Maybe I’m being too hard on myself though – this week comprised my highest weekly mileage, my fastest average speed for 100 miles and Saturday was also very muggy.

Now we’re into the final stages of preparation, the fear of things going wrong, astray or breaking is beginning to pervade my thinking day and night. So, inevitably, that means my checklist is getting longer and longer as I think of back-up options for potential failed parts and buy yet more spares that I’ll probably never need. The list is now over 150 items and counting…God knows how I’m going to pack all this stuff and carry it around! But with the start-line now so close, just thinking about it fills my stomach with butterflies and sets the adrenaline pumping – I rode with Steve on Saturday, who is a veteran of the 2006 TdF and completed the Race Across America in 2008 (3,000 miles non-stop!), so this kind of thing is old hat to him – but he told me that while waiting for me he’d popped into Dauphin Cycles and was talking to them about the TdF we are just about to embark on, and even he’d started choking up as he was speaking to them…and we haven’t even started yet. What the ‘eck are we all going to be like at the end of this all!


Weekly totals
Commute – 110 miles
Other rides – 225 miles

Funds raised to date £6,172