Hello again, it's been a while since I blogged. But I am back, with a mission.
To enlighten and amuse, to intrigue and confuse....
Well, it only seems like yesterday that I limped off my bike at the end of the cycling challenge (Worcester - London - Worcester) back in April. As I peeled my raw and painful backside from the sadddle, another cycling challenge was the last thing on my mind.
However, time is a great healer and the pain in my backside soon subsided to a dull memory, the incessant hills of the Cotswolds faded into mere inconveniences along the route and the exhaustion became completely forgotten. If I could recall how difficult it was, how painful and how painfully windy, I wouldn't have decided to embark on a cycling challenge more difficult, challenging and infinitely longer than the April challenge.
Yes, I have decided to cycle to Dublin and back. 3 countries - England, Wales and Ireland; 3 mountain ranges - The Brecon Beacons, The Wicklow Mountains and Snowdonia National Park....and a small matter of around 400 miles (650km) of cycling.
As I get older, I seem to want to go further and push myself that bit more....funny old thing middle age isn't it? If you'd asked me when I was a lardy 24 year old dining out on a diet of curries, lager and meat and potato pies whether I would be interested in cycling 650km, the answer would have been an unequivocal 'er, when's the football on...oh, sorry I'm washing my hair' (Sadly I can't use that excuse anymore).
So I am currently pouring over road atlases, eyeing up the route and looking apprehensively at names like 'Black Mountain' and, in a curious way, relishing the chance to get out there and tackle some real mountain roads, some testing climbs and some hair-raising descents.
The fundraising has started and I am already 23% towards the goal of £4,000. The cycling challenge is only the first of two challenges lined up for 2011 and 2012. I will be joining the Scope Everest Trek challenge and spending some considerable time trekking at high altitude in the shadow of the world's highest peak.
If you can sponsor me, please do so at my Justgiving page;
http://www.justgiving.com/tonyseverestchallenge
I'll post another entry soon, but in the meantime , I have to go and shave my legs and give up the biscuits in order to trim down for what will be an exhausting, but rewarding training schedule. Put it this way, noone else is going to get me to the top of all those climbs, so the lighter I am, the better.
Tony
