My Challenge
Today was only a short ride, still contending with the leftover gravel to make walking/driving bearable in the winters snow and ice, I managed to tackle 22km in under an hour. Increasing my average speed to 23.5kmh! Looking back and comparing it to last year, only managing that sort of time with an average speed of 20kmh, I am absolutely thrilled with the improvements and how much I have managed to push myself and gain in such a short time.
The Start Date
Its now only 104 days until I set off from home in Oslo, skipping our annual cabin trip and clipping in to make it back to where I grew up in Poole! Staring at over 1800km of cycle, in a short time. In the next 104 days, I am going to be upping my efforts for collecting donations for the Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance, this amazing organisation relies entirely on donations to be able to save lives! If anyone can offer any suggestions to help me support the collection efforts, please let me know! As always the donation link is below;
www.justgiving.com/fundraising/sam-cochrane?fbclid=IwAR0Ybcd_NNsFqePP62ytkIf3Iu4kHkIp0y1ikGOH47jcx2iIraW3cqv2hHU
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Its been a while...
The updates have been a lot slower than usual, however the progress has not been. Not slowing down, training harder and harder and pushing myself each week! I am seeing great progress with my time on the bike and I am getting more and more excited to get on the saddle and start taking on the kilometres!
As a result of ´finding my feet´ in writing blog posts, I have decided to squeeze some weeks together and hopefully make it more interesting.
With the flu well and truly behind me, I decided there is lost time to be made up and it was time to get back into the gym and train! Pushing myself to longer times on the bike, adding more weight on the machines, I learned one important thing... The stairs are no longer my friend! The perks of being in a second floor is you are able to keep the blood pumping on the way in. The downside to it, is my cries echoing through the stair case!! One of the highlights was it being dry enough to actually getting out on the bike, I felt a huge improvement in my pace, my average speed and it brought great enjoyment to actually do it without having to look at the orange walls of the gym. The temperature was a fresh 0 degrees, which probably aided in my increase in speed! Other than loosing the feeling in my shins (of all places) the biggest heartbreak was realising half way through I did hit start on Strava (if its not recorded, it doesn't count right?) The Journey Continued...
Following on from the last post, entering Denmark after a short ferry trip lasting only 3 hours and 45 minutes, I will land in Hertshals, Denmark and then begin the 148km ride to Møldrup, Denmark. This will mark the beginning of chipping away of the 1703km that lay ahead! Fortunately from the time spent reading maps and planning stage 2 of the trip, it looks to be a fairly even surface with a total of 286 ascent with a descent of 265m.
As you can see from the map, showing the first day it will not be a short day of cycling but it will take me through the majority of Denmark. I will roughly be spending 2 days in country with the second day holding a similar ride. I am hoping to be blessed with some fantastic views of the country, although this depends if I can see it through the sweat and the tears!
The Journey
The start of the journey is going to be the easy part. Beginning in Stabekk, I will travel through to Asker and down towards Drammen, this section is a ride I am a lot more familiar with, with some outstanding scenery and a lot of hills!
Welcome to my first week training and preparing for the task at hand!
I decided to begin my prep with devouring more and more information from experts in Ultra-Distance Cycling. I figured the best place to start with that is listening to the Ultra Cycling Show Podcast and it has opened my eyes in what to expect and how to prepare.
Also this week, I have been focusing on working with the Dorset & Somerset Air Ambulance, I have been finding out what I can do to make sure I maximise my efforts for them. They do fantastic work and are showing fantastic support to my efforts! You can find out more about them and the amazing work they do by checking out there social media pages below;
Sometimes you need to find something to challenge yourself, a reason to apply focus and a reason to better yourself. For me I have decided to attempt to get on my bike and go from my home in Oslo, Norway to my childhood home in Poole, UK. As a someone who is a ´part time´ cyclist, I wanted to push myself to the absolute limit and hopefully make a difference to a charity which is held close to my heart. This journey is inspired by my late Grandad who I had to say goodbye to recently. He was an inspiration to myself, my family and those who knew him and after a lifetime of showing strength to those around him through a variety of challenges life threw at him and what better way to honour that memory than taking on my challenge! With only 8 months to train to ready myself for this, I feel I may be descending into madness or searching for something to prove but either way I want to make sure I am doing it with a smile! So this blog will be me posting my training updates and my progression and a form of personal diary for me. So here goes nothing! |
AuthorSam Cochrane Archives
April 2023
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Photo used under Creative Commons from Giåm