I recently completed the Wales Velothon, an 86 mile cycle
event through the Brecon Beacons. The hills were not fun but I managed it in
just over 7 hours.
At mile 30, it started to rain, biblically, and I wanted my
mum. However I kept telling myself ‘it’s all for the kids, do it for the kids’.
Amazingly it stopped raining after about 20 minutes and everything dried off
before ‘The Tumble’, the first of two notorious climbs. It’s a 4 mile, 8%
gradient zig zag up a picturesque hill. I managed the zig but got off and
pushed half way up the zag; not as hard as cycling but still knackering!
Then it was a mixture of fast downhill, gentle downhill and
doable uphill until, Caerphilly mountain. MOUNTAIN. As I arrived I saw half the
people cycling and half pushing; considering this was the bottom of the mountain
I felt a dismount coming on and ended up pushing all the way up.
As I got to the top, I heard ‘it’s now 12kms downhill to the
finish line’ and felt a wave of euphoria. Imagine my surprise then when at the
bottom of the first descent we turned left and saw yet another bloody hill! So,
not all downhill but knowing it was nearly done and I’d actually manage it
after doubling my previous longest ride just a week before was a great feeling.
Me and my co-rider crossed the finish line with an awkward fistbump slash high
five desperately trying not to crash.
In all we raised £1500 for Great Ormond Street and my work
donated the enclosed £250 for Smile Train. Jake was born with a cleft
lip 8 years ago and the NHS did an amazing job; to think that other kids around
the world don’t get the same support is heart breaking especially when it’s
such a simple issue to fix. Anyway, I’m happy to have done this and also that
someone, somewhere will be the beneficiary.
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| Knackered on The Tumble |
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| 7:02 - roughly twice as slow as the pros. Gotta start somewhere. |
