A Little Help From Your Friends

I have posted about the power of sharing your goals before, here's the link.

Here are a couple of more examples.

2000 miles this year

I'm getting close to doing 2000 miles this year, last year I managed 1260, so it will be a massive achievement.
However with work and family commitments it is looking difficult to get out enough.
But I decided to give it a go and mentioned it to friends and family, who have all been veey supportive.
The extra support and the fact that it's not a secret any more meant I managed to do nearly 30 miles in the last couple of days.
At the time of posting I still have 135 miles go but I'm confident I will do it.

My Fitness Pal

This the app I use to track my calories.
I've used it for over a year and it has helped. However I had slacked off a bit, and because I wasn't watching what I was eating, it was a bit out of control.

A couple of weeks ago I got a notification that Toby, who writes the www.fatcyclerider.co.uk blog about how he has lost an impressive amount of weight, was now following me.
Therefore I had to start using it again, and it has helped to me to improve my diet again.

If you are using the app feel free to follow me, user name DBuckney, and we'll get there together.

Rubbish week eating rubbish food

I don't claim to have the best diet in the world, I like a treat every now and then, but this week there have been too many treats.

According to the MyFitnessPal app that I use, I'm 2900 calories over my weekly target, which is shocking seeing as I was 1959 calories under the week before.

I haven't been able to cycle into work once this week, and only went to the gym once so really I should eat less. I don't know why but if I don't exercise I seem to just want to eat rubbish food all the time.

I did have fairly genuine excuses for not cycling into work, but I could have found more time to go to the gym at work more often. A lot of people go at lunch time, which would be perfect, apart from the fact that I do sweat a lot for a fat bloke, and it is uncomfortable for the next hour. So I prefer to go straight after work, but energy levels can be quite low at that time of day.

The main reason I didn't cycle into work a couple of times was that my batteries had run out on my torch, which meant that I couldn't even go out cycling in the evening.
I've got some nice new rechargeable ones now, so that's another excuse out the window.

This lack of cycling has also effected my chances of hitting 2000 miles for the year.
I'm currently on 1838, having done 68 miles this month. It should have been more as that is only 2 rides.
There are 3 more weekends this month, so it is still possible.

200 miles in a month!

This is the second month that I've managed to do over 200 miles, which I'm really pleased with seeing as my target was only 132 miles a month.
I'm still gutted about only doing 81 miles in May, but I have made up for it by pushing my average up to 161 miles a month.

I did go out for my second ride with Fareham Wheelers at the start of the month. I was extra keen and cycled the 8 miles out to Wickham rather than drive. This, with the ride home took the total distance to 49.8 miles. My bike computer showed over 50, but when I checked Strava later it showed only 49.8. If I had known I would gone round the block to hit the 50 miles mark.

It was a nice ride out, I went with the "Social" group, but some of the hills weren't that social. But is was great to find some new routes and get the experience of cycling in a group. Drafting or sitting close behind someone makes a massive difference, you just get pulled along without much effort.

I've also managed to get Haribo Joe back out on his bike a couple of times this month, which was great. One of the rides was with two other friends, Chris and Paul who are also just getting back into cycling. The plan was to make it a regular ride, but it has only happened the once so far, wrong time of the year to be starting things like that.

I keep looking at my total figure of 1770 and wondering if hitting the 2000 mark will be possible this year. It would mean doing my second highest total for a month, in probably the worst month of the year, bad weather, going away for Christmas and any other excuse I can think of. 

It might be the wrong attitude but I often prefer not to set massive targets, because I prefer to hit my targets. This limiting belief, as they call it, is probably holding me back in a lot of areas, so it is something I need to think about.

As always please feel free to leave any comments or suggestions that you think might help me or other readers.

Still on track!

 

Its been a while since my last update, but I'm glad to report that I'm smashing last year figures.

There has only been one month, May, where I didn't hit my monthly goal of 132 miles but that was down to my dodgy knee keeping me off the bike for a few weeks.

But my monthly average is at 157 miles, which I'm pleased about.

 

A lot of the extra miles have been cycling to my new job, it's about 4 to 6 miles depending upon which route I take. During the summer I can't think of a better way to end a day at work than a nice bike ride with part of it along the coast.

It wasn't so nice last week when it was dark and I had a basic light. There are two types of lights, see and be seen.

I had a "be seen" light and I was confident other cars could see me, but it was a bit of guess work along some of the country lanes I go down.

Since then I have borrowed Haribo Joe's Hope Vision One light and it makes a massive difference, I could see where I was going.

 

I have been for a couple of rides with the local cycling club www.fareham-wheelers.org.uk/ which was really good. Nice to find some new routes and get the experience of riding in a group, which is quite daunting. There are usually only about 12 people in a group, so you have to be careful about what other riders are doing but you do get dragged along at a good speed.

 

I used to go to the doctors to get weighed, but I haven't been for a few months, but I'm confident that I'm still losing weight, or maybe my clothes have just got that little bit bigger.

I've almost reached the worst part of losing weight where I need to go shopping for new clothes, can't think of anything worse.

 

It is getting harder to get out due to the weather but I just need to man up and deal with the rain, you can only get so wet.

A Few Of My Favourite Things

Last Monday I had a lovely day off work going for a bike ride with my daughter and then a pub lunch with my wife.
Just missing a few rain drops on roses and whiskers on kittens.

The bike ride was along the Hayling Billy which is an old railway line down the side of Hayling Island.
It's pretty flat but not suitable for road tyres so I had to go on my brother in law's bike.

Most of the way you get lovely views of Langstone Harbour. It is possible to cycle all the way around the harbour, you need to get the ferry across to Eastney, and back up a cycle path along the Eastern Road. I think it is about 15 miles.

We've done it before where we've cycled all the way to the bottom of the Island, had lunch at a pub on the beach and cycled back, about 10 miles in total.

Unfortunately Mrs B's knee was playing up so she waited on the beach for us with our dog. So Lilly and I only went as far as the bmx track, where I had to have a go over a few of the jumps.
Heavy bloke on a heavy bike doesn't equal much air.

We then cycled back, found the wife and drove to The Royal Oak for fish and chips in the garden.

On the bike ride I said to Lilly "I love spending time with you and I love cycling, so I'm having a great day".

She replied "I love spending time with you and I don't mind cycling".

We're getting there!

Blissford Hill Smashed!

I completed the The New Forest Rattler last weekend, which includes the 25% Blissford Hill aka The Wall!



Apparently registration starts at 7:00 with the first groups of riders setting off at 8:30. So when Haribo Joe and myself arrived just just after 8 we were surprised to be "stuck" behind a load of cyclist. So we're not sure when they set riders off.

Anyway we went through the simple registration process, deciding to miss out on the free porridge, instead opting for the festival experience of the dreaded portaloo. It wasn't to bad, but I should have just waited and used a bush.

So we lined up, hoping the slight drizzle was going to pass, planning on beating our time of 3:38 for the 47 miles.

I suddenly realised that my Strava wasn't working and stupidly crossed the start line, therefore starting my official time. I should have held back and gone with the next bunch, rather than setting off and wasting valuable minutes at the side of the road getting it sorted.

Eventually we got going.

The course is described as being fairly flat, which it is, once you get up to the flat bit. To start with there are a few little hills to wake up your legs.

It is a nice route, mostly on pretty quiet roads. But you need to watch out for the wildlife, horses, donkeys, cows and this year pigs.

Once again there was a well stocked feed station, where I tried to get my monies worth of jelly beans and flapjack.

We were setting a good pace, taking it in turns to lead, even passing other cyclists, which is always nice. You can see on my strava that it was PR's all the way for the first half.

Then things turned sour for Joe.

The major surgery earlier in the year and resulting lack of time in the saddle caught up with him and he started to struggle.
The course didn't help. It had been fairly sheltered, but then goes across the top of the New Forest, which is open, and there was an eternal head wind.
No cyclist likes a head wind, especially larger framed gentleman like Joe and myself. We're not the most aerodynamic shape on a bike.
A road, with a slight downwards gradient, that we should have cruised along, suddenly became soul destroying. And it just kept on going.

To make matters even worse, Joe's chain came off.

Eventually we made it out of the New Forest and got some shelter from the wind and started going down hill.

But what goes down must go up.

Blissford Hell!

It's only a very short hill, but at 25% and after 42 miles it is nasty.

But I made it up in one go this year.

After that it is quite an easy couple of miles to the finish, just dodging more wildlife.
We snuck in just under 4 hours.

At the end you get a certificate and a food voucher for the bbq, but there was a massive queue so we just grabbed a couple of bananas and drove home.

It is a great sportive, really well organised, just as good as the Wiggle events, but on a smaller more relaxed scale.

Hills and Head Winds.....

This basically how it felt all the way around the Mega Meon Sportive

Haribo Joe, my brother Pete and I arrived at South Downs College just before 8. It was very well organised, quick check in etc. We even got a High5 energy pack worth £12, not bad when the entry fee was £18.

We then set off in a group of about 20 riders for 55 miles up and over the South Downs.

Almost straight away we were onto nice quiet roads which was pretty much how it stayed for most of the route.

It started off fairly flat to start with, but once past Hambledon you've got the long, steady climb up to the Bat and Ball pub. This is the start of the South Downs, so no more flat roads.

The feed stop was at East Meon at a church hall. Well stocked as you would expect, I was asked to move away from the jelly beans.

The feed station is well placed, just before one of the hardest climbs up to the top of Old Winchester Hill.
But the views made it worthwhile.

We were all working well as a team, every now and then letting Pete have a rest at the back.
We were also calling out if junctions were clear or not, apart from one junction where I was sure I heard Joe call out "Clear........sort of"
Luckily I checked for myself and saw the massive Land Rover bearing down on me. It was the first time I've had to unclip in an emergency.

Just after we saw the 10km to go marker I heard a strange noise but everything felt ok. A few minutes later I heard a tapping noise so stopped to check and realised I had broken a spoke.

This can be game over.

Luckily Pete managed to do enough for me to get me going. So I shot off more concerned about getting to the finish line than my team mates.

As I was steaming up to the top of Portsdown Hill my brother just glided along side me, had a quick chat and then reminded me that he is my older brother by powering away from me up the hill.

About a mile from the finish we turned left and for the first time got a tail wind.

We finished in 5 hours 18, a bit slow but we finished and enjoyed it.