Cleve's June Post

Training has been going really well, with harder & longer distances being tackled. Since my last post I did the 47 miles i mentioned with Sophie (my other training partner), really good challenge especially the Skipton to Harrogate leg which seems to be all up hill including a 4 mile climb! Me & Matt also went out the other week tackling Emsley & Holme Moss (the group ride Matt said i'd chickened out of) - nice challenging hills. I've got a few training runs of around 20 - 30 miles which i'm doing at least once per week in between longer rides. Karen (my wife) has also got back on the bike so hoping to get her out on a couple of 20-30 mile rides on times we have a sitter.

Yesterday I did the "Great Yorkshire Bike Ride" - 72 miles - Wetherby to Filey with Sophie & her dad Derek (his 9th time). A good ride with decent weather until the last hour, we found it not too difficult & reckon that some of our training rides have been harder! I'm really impressed with my energy levels, i'm comfortable sprinting after many miles & hours, in fact yesterday I decided to really push the last 12 miles and rode on the back of a bunch of club cyclists in a sort of peleton ... and I had no problem keeping up with them (although they seem to use less effort than me on the hills), felt fine today & could have done it again.

So we need to do more long runs. I'm off on hols soon so will no doubt be back with some loss of fitness after a week of excessing in the sun with the family. Holiday season is no doubt going to disrupt the training, I'm looking forward to trying out a bit of a Tour de France route on my other holiday in South of France in Aug, we are out there with some friends & one of them is a tri-athlete who competes for GB so we are hoping to do a couple of rides.!

Going to see if I can tempt the boys into a 2 day ride, 110 miles on a Friday/stay over night/110 miles back the next day ... which will give us a taste of what to expect..... with only 3 months to go, i'm getting excited already, i'm really enjoying the training & feel positive about my progress to date, the ipod is a godsend for those long lonely rides!

Going to send out my request for sponsors at the beginning of next month, i've had quite a few people asking how to give us money for the cause!