7 weeks to go

We're all down to seven weeks to go to the Maratona and we are well into our threshold training blocks. I lost a week of training due to a lower back injury, but, I'm fully back into the swing of training again. Threshold training is mentally much easier than endurance, but, physically it's on a different level.

Kate, Kirsten and I spent a weekend at Center Parcs, which was a great getaway. However, the training was definitely interesting. Trying to do threshold training with so many people walking and cycling in random directions doesn't make for the easiest of sessions. There were several interesting moments where I caught up with other cyclists only to have them drift across the path in front of me. The most interesting point was when I caught up with a Hen Party walking six abreast across the road. Two moved to the left, three moved to the right and the sixth woman frozen in the middle of the road. Assuming that she was going to move, I chose to aim straight for her. She finally moved out the way just before I'd have needed to brake, which was handy as I was travelling well over the site speed limit of 10 mph at the time.

The next big milestone for the team is on Friday 25th May when we are organising a sponsored cycle event on the Jaguar Land Rover test track at Gaydon. This will hopefully raise the profile of the main event as well as raising some more money from the keen cyclists at work.

After this we are all focused on the Wiggle Dragon Ride on 10th June which is our final warm up event prior to the main event. This ride is 206km and climbs 3350m. I'm getting a bit nervous about this one now as it will be the farthest I've ridden and there is a lot more climbing than I have ever done before, but, I've done the training, so (as I keep being told) I should be fine - fingers crossed, eh!