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The weather this week has been awful - didn't look great for yesterday's event until mid-week when the forecast looked like it was going to be perfect for cycling.
It's the second year I've taken part in Pedal - last year I did 100 laps/37 miles on my faithful old Dawesy and this year's target had been set at 137 laps to tie in with the age of the velodrome. 137 laps would mean about 50 miles so a few more than last year, riding me new Specialized Dolce, or Doris as she's now affectionately known.
Looking at facebook earlier in the morning a few Club riders had already started their laps - cyclists from Brighton, Crawley & Redhill and then Juniors from Preston Park Cycling Club started before the track was opened to the rest of us at 12 o'clock. There were quite a lot of cyclists on the track from 12, some of the Club riders and Juniors had stayed on. I knew I had to keep my speed up to ensure that I could get to 50 miles in less than 4 hours but to be honest once I met up with Nik and Conrad all thoughts of getting to 50 went out the window and it was just going to be a case of enjoy the day, go as far and for as long as possible. As a change this year there was a DJ playing some great tracks
We agreed to do our first 50 laps and then have a refreshment break - there was a fantastic spread of cakes and snacks waiting at the pavilion. The first 50 seemed to go quite quickly and before I knew I was off the bike again and having a nice warm cup of tea and a piece of coffee and walnut cake.
On to the next 87 laps - we decided to break it down - head to 60 laps and see how we were doing. Nik wasn't sure if she could do the whole 137 as she hadn't done any work on the bike since May, and I wasn't sure how close to 4pm doing 137 would take us. I was quite pleased to see my Garmin tick over the 37 miles I'd done last year and before I knew it Nik was telling me we'd done 110 laps and she thought it was a good time to stop. The organisers were starting to pack up and there was only another 20 minutes before the end of the event - we were all knackered and there seemed little point in burying ourselves, so we headed to the track exit and the cake stand which was still groaning with goodies!
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| mmmm cake |
43 miles completed, recovery drink swallowed, another piece of coffee and walnut cake we headed home, collecting our medal on the way.
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| Medals collected |
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| Conrad reminded us that we needed to stretch as well as refuel |
I love this event, it's really well organised and it's great to have an excuse to use the velodrome which I wouldn't normally. Slightly gutted we ran out of time to do the goal laps but pleased with how it went - can't wait to do it again next year!
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