Monday 14 July – Sunday 20 July. T-minus 3 weeks to Ride London.
Total Team Sheep Miles: 2613; Total raised for Friendship Works: £633

This was it. The peak of our training, the longest ride before the day, the highest weekly mileage at over 140 miles each. After last week’s dreadful 69 miler we needed some good rides to give us the confidence that we can do this without being swept up by the broom wagon – the course-closing vehicle that chases us slower cyclists around the route, eating people who drop behind 8h30m pace like some 1980s video game baddie.

With Audrey still needing some time to get used to her new bike, we were unsure how this week’s rides would go, but conscious that this was the last week for gaining fitness before our taper period we threw ourselves in with gusto: fast riding, hill repeats, race pace, then the longest long ride until the day: Eighty Miles, with full race-day preparation to test everything out.

Read on to find out how the week went, and whether we got further away from Mr Evil Pac-Man Broom Wagon (there’s more drawings throughout as a reward for wading through my wordy-prose)!

Give £1, Friendship Works get £4

But first, a quick fund-raising update. We’ve sailed past our minimum target – thank you all who’ve donated – however as we really believe in what the fantastic Friendship Works do, we’re going to keep bugging you. They’re a small charity without the fund-raising clout of the big boys, providing vital long-term support and mentoring for disadvantaged children in London on a very limited budget. Putting our money where our mouths are, we will personally match any sponsorship received for the next seven days (or £200, whichever comes first)!

So for every £1 you donate, we’ll chuck in another £1, and my employer will match both, meaning £4 for Friendship Works!

We’re trying to reach £2,000, enough to train five new mentors, so give a few pounds or dollars here at Just Giving – for our American readers, you can donate directly in US dollars so there are no additional fees to pay for US credit/debit cards.

They’ve ridden how far?

A few fun facts: In training for Ride London, between us we’ve now cycled the distance from London to Newfoundland in Canada (~2475mi) or Baghdad (~2550mi). Individually, Audrey has just sailed past Reykjavik, Iceland or Tirana in Albania (~1175mi) and I’m nearing Greenland (Ittoqqortoormiit – try spelling that after a pint) or Athens (~1490mi)!

Right enough messing about, on with this week’s rides.

Tuesday: Fast around Richmond Park

We went out on Tuesday for a fast full lap of Richmond Park and set a new record for us lapping together – 27m11s at 15.1mph average! Audrey was starting to get the hang of her new bike and was able to maintain a much better pace up the hills, so it was a really encouraging ride.

Wednesday: Hill Repeats

After meeting the hills a couple of weeks back and our dreadful long ride last week (also fairly hilly), we can certainly benefit from more hill training – if nothing else, pain now should give a nicer race day! Our hill repeats involved us repeatedly cycling up and down Ridgeway Place in Wimbledon, which goes up the same slope as Wimbledon Hill, the last climb of the route.

I did ten ascents for a total of ~1000ft gain over 6 miles, Audrey nine slightly shorter climbs for a total of ~750ft over 3.3 miles, in both cases taking around 30 minutes. For context, Leith Hill is ~500ft over 1.5mi and Box Hill ~600ft over 2.7mi.

We maintained a decent pace but were wiped out by the end, a very hard session.

Friday: Mid-length race pace

It was always going to be difficult to fit a 40 mile race-pace practice in after work. We didn’t leave the house until 20:00 making completing it inside Richmond Park without getting locked in a serious challenge.

Using the 5.7mi shorter lap (which has approximately the right elevation gain to be a microcosm of Ride London), we needed to get round 5 times. We started well, but as jet black clouds rolled in it got dark much faster than anticipated. A fantastical storm was throwing enormous lightning bolts down on the far side of London, amazing to watch but thankfully well away from us!

It stayed mostly dry but, as we neared the end of our third lap, we could barely see the road – 14.3mph average so far though! We left the park to complete our ride on street, where at least there were lights to help. Our bike lights are definitely more for being seen than for seeing with!

A couple of laps around Wimbledon Village and alongside the Common, maintaining a decent pace, then the batteries in my light finally gave up and we headed home for a total distance of 35 miles. We’d managed an average moving pace of 13.9mph over the 30 miles from entering the park, giving us badly-needed confidence that we may yet escape the evil Pac-Man broom wagon.

A well-earned rest day on Saturday, then all that remained was the big one!

Sunday: 80 miles of London

Our plan for this longest of long training rides was to make it as much like Ride London day as possible – getting up at the same time, eating the breakfast we intend to eat, and setting out at our official start time of 08:12. Our breakfast-of-champions will be McDonald’s pancakes with syrup (pretty much 100% carbohydrates) and a portion of porridge (mostly slower-burning carbohydrates). So at 05:35 this Sunday, we hauled ourselves out of bed, drove to the nearest McDonald’s and loaded up, sitting in the car to eat it as we will on the morning (though someone else will be driving!).

Back home to finish our prep and get on our bikes – carefully noting down each thing that our tired brains forgot so on the morning we can be zombies and still get to the start with the right underpants on. The newly-upgraded SheepTracker was activated, now including the total distance each of us has travelled, to give our dear viewers a better idea how we’re doing! Average speed and total time coming soon…

At 08:12 we rolled out of our gate to start. Two turns of the pedals and I realised I had the wrong shoes on! Another one for the list… quick dash inside to rectify and we were on our way.

The route used some of the best bits from our much earlier pan-London epics, adjusted to avoid fiddly or busy bits, keeping sections that give us the best opportunity to go at a reasonable pace.

We started strongly – a touch stodgy feeling from the large breakfast, but that soon passed leaving us glad of the energy it gave. Remembering to eat every 30-45 minutes (mostly Haribo with the occasional Frusli granola bar) and drink plenty, we ticked off 25 miles in good time – 13.3mph moving average, 1h52m moving time. A quick comfort break at a convenient Sainsbury’s (who couldn’t actually sell us anything thanks to Sunday trading laws – like a mirage, you can look at the water but you can’t buy the water) then on our way. We continued out along the Greenway and back, stopping again at the same Sainsbury’s around mile 34 to finally procure the water.

Just shy of 40 miles in, we stopped for lunch – I’d squeezed jam sandwiches into my saddle and top tube bags which surprisingly hadn’t got too smushed. Audrey had a fluffernutter (marshmallow fluff and peanut butter sandwich: definitely an American thing) and a jam sandwich strapped to her pannier rack.

Across London again, we continued to make good progress, though I was tiring slightly by the time we reached Battersea Park for the second time so had my first energy gel of the day (a Science-in-Sport lemon-and-lime, if you were wondering). This helped a little, but with hindsight I don’t think I’d drank enough: about 900ml in nearly five hours of riding. Audrey had been more sensible, and as I went on I upped my drinking. This should be less of a problem on the day as we’ll have far more opportunities to get water.

Reaching Richmond Park, I found a a second wind after another energy gel and drinking a lot more, although as the heat rose we both ran out of water, necessitating a quick stop to buy more. Our final full lap of Richmond Park, climbing Sawyer’s Hill the steep way then Dark Hill, provided a good late challenge and finally kicked the last of the energy out of us. The few miles back home were fairly miserable, and I had the energy gel with caffeine I’d saved for near the end. This helped clear my head and we finished up feeling very tired but very accomplished – the overall pace was really strong, even near the end we were able to average 14mph over the 18 miles in the park.

The overall moving pace was a strong 12.9mph (click for full Ride with GPS stats) – which considering the amount of junctions and traffic lights we had to slow down for, we were really happy with. It’s the second fastest of our 50+ mile rides – and our fastest, at 13.1mph, was the 50 miler almost entirely in Richmond Park before flying to the US – with hardly any junctions to stop for on that one, it’s not really a fair comparison!

Audrey’s new bike worked very well; we were able to share the work at the front and maintain a much better pace along the open stretches than in our previous rides. Begone, evil broom wagon Pac-Man!!

Looking Forward

Next week we’ll start to gently taper, with a long ride of 55 miles on Friday morning. After that, we’ll be cutting back more sharply to get ourselves ready for the day. At this point, we feel ready from a fitness point of view, so it’s all down to careful preparation and maintenance now.

Three weeks until we Ride London and we can’t wait!

The boring stats:

• Weekly distance: 146 miles (Mark), 144 miles (Audrey).
• Average moving speed (long ride): 12.9mph
• Moving time (long ride): 6h18m
• Total punctures to date – Mark: 0, Audrey: 2
• Total zero-speed falling-over-due-to-cleat-issues – Mark: 9,  Audrey: n/a.
• Total training miles to date (including cycling to work) – Mark: 1424 miles, Audrey: 1189 miles + 6 hours spinning.