The 15 hour warm up

So at the moment, the most common question I get is “How is the training going?”. It’s kinda like the year leading up to your wedding.
Or if you are expecting a child. It’s the go to question for everyone, instead of a generic “how’s things?“.
Which I’m not complaining about, because for a lot of people, what to say when they see me can be tricky.
The elephant in the room is the fact that it’s still less than a year since Lewis died, and so that, naturally would be the big “thing” in my life. But it’s not so easy to ask someone how they are coping with the loss of their son. You’re not sure whether you want to mention it or not. A lot of folk think “I don’t want to bring it up, or ‘remind’ the person of it” as if we would have somehow forgotten or didn’t have it playing on our mind every other second of every day.
So “how is training going?” I think is a bit of a proxy for “How are you doing/coping?“. but in terms of the actual training…..
My answer so far has been “I think it’s going ok“.
I’ve been getting loads of time into Athlete Lab for my high intensity classes midweek. and I’ve also managed to get in quite a few long rides at the weekend.
So far this year I’ve ridden 1,484km spending 55 hours in the saddle.
My longest single ride has been 6hrs 20m and covered 159km (or 99 miles)

Now, as big as a 6hr 159km ride sounds, it’s not even 25% of the actual London to Glasgow route. So I’m wary of saying that I’m on track for the big day.
However, the next 12 days are gonna go a long way to answering that training question.
Tomorrow, here’s my schedule:

• 4:00am Alarm
• 4:10am breakfast
• 4:15am-6:15am 2hr ride
• 6:30am Arrive at Athlete Lab
• Cycle-Sweat-Eat-Repeat for 12 hours
• 6:30pm Leave Athlete Lab
• 6:45pm -7:45pm 1hr ride home
• 8:00pm bed(!)

So, I’ll be testing out an early morning start, then I’ll be doing back to back classes in Athlete Lab for 12 hours, followed by a ride home. Potentially 15 hours of cycling, the majority of it in a controlled environment with the Athlete Lab team, who by the way have been amazing so far in their help.
They’re setting up a bike for me for the whole day, with a table next to me to hold all of my nutrition for the day. (a lot of which btw, was home baked by myself at the weekend). I’ve been trying all sort of recipes to see what works well on the go. If my body doesn’t hold up and the challenge fails, my back up plan is a 24 hour bake-a-thon to raise the charity funds.

I’ve got my event training t-shirts printed for wearing in the Lab (complete with the absolutely brilliant event logo that my brother designed for me, shown below)

I’ve even got some wee business cards to put on my food table, in case any of the other athlete lab members are interested in helping out with the challenge.
So by 8pm tomorrow, I’ll have a much better idea of where I am in terms of training.
Then on Good Friday, I’ve got another big test but I’ll keep quiet about that just now. One step at a time.

So, if you are holding off on your donation, because you’re not sure that I’ll achieve the Non-Stop route. Then maybe tomorrow night you’ll have a bit more confidence.
Or, if you think its me that needs a bit more confidence, then why not donate now or tomorrow during my marathon session? I’ll have my phone nearby & might even live tweet some of the agony I’m in, so I’ll see the notifications from the VirginMoney account. It might just give me a little boost every now and then.

I’m not quite sure that I can wholeheartedly say “I’m looking forward to it” because for the most part, it’s going to be painful. In all sorts of ways. But it’s physical pain, and that is by far more manageable than the mental pain that I deal with on a daily basis since losing Lewis (and Dexter).

So, wish me luck…

DONATE HERE

Graeme.