Time waits for no man

Mick said it years ago, and he was absolutely right. Was that on Goats Head Soup?

When I started out on this venture, I realised that my schedule would be hectic, and that I would be struggling to integrate the various elements that knit my life together with the intense training. I wish I was a professional athlete.

I'm still waiting for the phone call from the Chief Executive..... 'Hi Pete. I've been reading your blog. It's fantastic and so are you. What a tremendous good cause, and what brilliant positive advertising for the hospital. I've had a chat with the Chairman and The Execs. and we all agree that your success in this project is essential and will benefit us all. We've decided to give you paid leave until July 17th so that you can train as much as you want, and won't be compromised by lack of time. And here's a donation of £1000 from my slush fund towards Prostate Cancer.'

Dream on.

I am now acutely aware that with less than 6 weeks to go to the big day, what I do in the next 4 weeks is going to make the difference between a triumphant successful ride or a gruelling emotional slogfest.(Think pain, tears, bowel upset, depression..that sort of thing).

As you know I amazed myself and did pretty well in the Hampshire HH two Sundays ago. My official time has been posted on the organisers' website http://www.sportivecycling.org.uk/hhh2007provtimes2.pdf as 5 hours 41 minutes and that is well within gold medal standard for my age. So obviously I'm pretty chuffed about that and it has given me a big boost of confidence. Well, it did for a few days, and now the feeling has evaporated and I'm feeling nervous again. Perhaps I have peaked too early? Or the perfect conditions made it easy. And I'm reminded that after the 100 mile mark in July, I will still have two huge climbs ahead of me before the finish. And I feel as if I've done almost nothing since then and what fitness I had is ebbing away with the rainwater.

My biggest fear are the mountain climbs, the weather and the altitude. I've rationalised my insecurities and it boils down to this. I can't leave my house and practice riding up huge high mountains. If I was training for a marathon run, I would by now have mapped out a 26 mile route, and could simply go out and try it. And again. And once more, until success was assured. Then I would be ready. My problem is simply that there are no Pyreneean mountains in the UK, and so I can't go and try them. I can't test myself on the real thing. And until two days ago, I had thought that I wouldn't be able to take a trip to France for a recce.

So, imagine my luck....I get an email from my old mate, all-round talented action-man Chris who lives in Montpellier. Montpellier is near lots of mountains. Guess what Chris' new hobby is? Guess who's flying down to the south of France to stay with Chris for 4 days in the second week of June. It has been really tricky finding a gap in my diary, and Ryanair have come up trumps. More luck. The flights cost 1p each way. (OK..taxes etc cost about £500)

I'm really looking forward to that.

Last Bank Holiday weekend was a washout. I spent a few hours crossing the Solent and trundling up and down the M3/A34/M40 to visit the family. This brought an added and different stress to my table. No riding for three days was bad enough, but here was also the debilitating sleep deprivation (I'm a terrible sleeper in any bed other than my own), the patchy irregular eating, and lack of many, many mugs of tea. I've also developed a nasty low back pain, possibly from the foreign bed or the car journey.

Finally, some blog housework.

Thanks to Jacko and The Cosmic Lawnmower for their recent postings.

Thanks for the anonymous donation of £100 to The Prostate Cancer Charity. That's generous.

Good luck to Hannah who has soon to face her own small endurance event.

Commiserations to West Brom. Hard luck. Can't say I'm particularly sorry though.

Tomorow morning I'm going to fit a ride in early, before work at about 6am . The idea is to do a low-intensity ride for a maximum of an hour on an empty stomach. Apparently, this helps to teach the body to use intra-muscular fat stores for energy. We'll see about that.