10 days to go ...

For once, training has been going fairly to plan - hurray!  Last week my lovely friend, Reinet (in the picture) took me for a 61 mile ride round all the Surrey hills that feature in Ride London - Newlands Corner, Leith Hill and Box Hill.  It was brilliant as I realised that I can actually do hills (if not particularly fast!)  Interestingly, I think the spin training has really helped me with the hill climbing - I only do half an hour a week (on the turbo trainer at home that my friend Ed very kindly lent me) so it doesn't take much time but it has definitely made a difference.

Annoyingly, by the time I got home from that ride, my left knee was quite swollen and painful, which is the last thing I want at this stage.  I managed to get into see my physio a few days later though and apparently its just muscular which is good.  So lots of stretching and not too much pressure on it, and hopefully it should (just about) be able to cope with the 100 miles.  I was extremely sensible (by my standards at least) and took a week off cycling.

Well, with the exception of a (gentle) spin session on Thursday, anyway.  As I didn't think my knee would take hill training, I concentrated on getting my cadence up in the spin session.  For those who know as much as I did when I started training for this, cadence is how fast your legs spin round (i.e. how many rotations they do per minute).  To be the most efficient you can be, you apparently want to be aiming for about 90rpm - this higher cadence reduces the forces you have to apply to remain at a specific power output. At the start, I had an average of about 60rpm which is pretty standard for most cyclists.  Advanced and elite cyclists tend to be between 80 and 100rpm. Lance Armstrong cycled at an average of 110rpm!  So I figured, if I can get my cadence up a bit, that has got to be a good thing.  Nick bought me a cadence monitor (little gadget which you strap to the crank arm of your pedal) and its linked to my Garmin watch so tells me what cadence I'm cycling at.  Being able to see my cadence and having a bit of time on a turbo trainer to focus on that rather than hills etc. makes such a difference - my average on my last (admittedly much flatter) ride was 86 rpm, so I'm frankly super pleased with that.

Last Sunday, Reinet took me out again - this time on a longer, flatter route - 71 miles to Windsor and back.  The picture above is of us enjoying a mouth-watering cinnamon bun at a fantastic, very cycling-friendly cafe in the middle of Windsor.  The buns are huge and I thought there was no way I was going to finish it.  A few bites later and it was miraculously all gone and I was thinking about another one (I restrained myself!)

It was really interesting, and useful, to experience a flatter route as I don't tend to get much of that around the Surrey hills where I am.  It was incredible to realise what a difference drafting can make, for one thing.  This is where you sit behind another cyclist and take advantage of the reduction in wind resistance that you benefit from. I've always thought that it couldn't make that much difference really, but taking turns riding in front and behind over a 70 mile route, I realised just how wrong I was.  It is incredible how, up front, you can be fighting and pushing yourself to keep going.  Then you drop behind someone else and, all of a sudden, you are having to sit on the brakes to stop yourself cycling into the person in front (who is pedalling just as hard as you were).  Studies have shown drag reductions of between 27% and 50% for riders who are drafting (depending on the size and on-the-bike position of the rider in front, likewise with the rider drafting, the distance from the wheel in front, the direction and strength of the wind etc.)

This is going to be really important for me, particularly at the start of the ride.  I had already been told this by a number of people who have previously done RideLondon but I didn't appreciate how useful it could be at the time, or how much energy it could save me.  The map below shows the 100 mile route and the route profile below that shows how flat the first 40 miles of the ride are in comparison to the hilly Surrey section.

So, for the first 40 miles of the ride, I am going to do my best to get in with a nice bunch of like-minded (and similar speed) cyclists and make full use of drafting.  And I am also going to be good and make sure I take my turn at the front (as much as I'm sure I'll just want to sit in the middle of the pack!)

Now I just have to keep myself uninjured for the next 10 days and make sure I get to the start on time ... surely I've had all my bad luck already?!

https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/SusannaSpeirs

Hmmm ... that wasn't quite how I planned this week going ...

So, having said in my last post that I was going to stick to my training plan and just enjoy the process, everything promptly went completely and utterly pear shaped ... Ben came down with a fever and a swollen gland just over a week ago and by Saturday was on antibiotics. By Monday morning the lump still hadn't gone down so back to hospital we went for a check-up.  I walked him down in the buggy fully expecting to be back home a couple of hours later.  That didn't happen.

We were sent straight to Paediatric A&E at Epsom General Hospital, who were fantastic.  After a fairly short wait, we were seen by a doctor.  Turned out that Ben had an abscess so they immediately put a cannula in (you can imagine how much fun that was for a 4 year old) and got him started on IV antibiotics.  He was then admitted and we were sent up to Casey Ward so they could continue the IV antibiotics until they could get him into St George's for surgery to drain the abscess (they don't do paediatric surgery at Epsom).

Somewhat unsurprisingly (when you think about it), staying in hospital is really not a lot of fun.  Ben was in a lot of pain (having recently had an abscess as well, I know exactly how frigging painful it is!) and, even with as much paracetamol and ibuprofen as they could give him, it was barely touching the sides.  On top of that, Ben started to dread the nurses coming to give him more antibiotics (which happened every 6 hours, day or night) as the drugs going in really stung his arm.

The first night was, quite frankly, hideous.  I was worried about not being able to sleep because of all the sick children in the ward but, as it turned out, Ben was the one keeping everyone else up most of the time.  I think he woke 10 or 12 times that first night.  At about 11pm, he had just had another dose of antibiotics and was crying endlessly with the pain and tiredness.  I felt completely useless - he'd already had all the painkillers they would give him and I couldn't do anything to help him other than be there.  I ended up sitting next to Ben on the bed, shushing him, with tears streaming down my face and trying not to make any noise so I didn't upset him anymore than he already was.  It was horrible.  I started thinking about what would happen if something went wrong and he died.  How would I ever cope if I lost another one of my babies?  I know the chances of anything going wrong with something like an abscess are extremely small but, once you've been on the wrong side of statistics, you don't really trust them to protect you anymore.

Thankfully he finally stopped crying not too long after that and went back to sleep (for ... oh, at least half an hour).  Many, many wakings later, it was 5:30am and Ben was somehow ready to get up for the day. As everyone else in the ward unsurprisingly wasn't, we moved to the playroom (yes, the ward has a playroom) and a very boring day got started.  Mum phoned to see how I was a bit later and, although I tried to say that I was fine, the rather shaky voice may have given me away.  Mum, being the wonderful mum that she is, arrived at the hospital a couple of hours later and didn't leave until Ben's bedtime.  By that time, the antibiotics had started kicking in so the second night was thankfully a lot better.

The staff at St George's still hadn't been able to find a bed for Ben by the end of the second day, so decided to put him on the outpatient surgery list for the Wednesday with the understanding that we would be transferred back to Epsom General after the surgery.  I was assuming we'd go in hospital transport but what actually happened was that a cab turned up at the hospital for us at 6am.  It seemed completely ludicrous! Such a waste of money for the NHS when I could just have driven us ourselves ... hey ho.

We arrived at St George's at 6:30am, only to be told that Ben wasn't actually on the list but they'd try to fit us in and were hoping that he could be seen that day.  Given that Ben hadn't eaten since 5pm the night before, and he's only 4, I wasn't overly happy about him having to potentially not eat all day and then have to do it all over again the next day.  Plus I felt too guilty to eat in front of him, when he couldn't, so I hadn't eaten since the night before either.  I managed to scoff a yoghurt when he was distracted by Paw Patrol (thank God for Paw Patrol!) but, by 2pm when he finally was called for surgery, that was still all I'd eaten so we were both pretty hangry ...

We went into the ante-room to the theatre and the two (really lovely) anaethetists, Ben and Sam, started chatting to my Ben.  Ben was not particularly happy with more things going into his arm but they were really good with him.  The bit that kind of freaked me out was when they put the anaesthetic in his IV and within 3 seconds (if that), he fell asleep.  It was unbelievably quick.  The anaethetist took Ben from my arms, told me to kiss him goodbye and showed me out.  I was definitely more traumatised than Ben was frankly.  I hated leaving my little boy with the surgeons to be cut open when he was asleep.  Obviously I did, because that's what he needed, but I really didn't like it ... but, on the plus side, I did then get to go and have a coffee and a sandwich (which, given I was literally shaking by that point, I suspect I needed quite badly).  I got to take a little buzzer with me so they could call me when he was waking up.  All very sensible.

The surgery only took about an hour but, when I went to see Ben in the recovery room, he'd fallen back asleep and really didn't want to wake up (not a huge surprise as Nick always has trouble waking up from generals as well).  A lot of tickling and cold flannels later and we eventually managed to wake him up and took him back to the ward bed.  He had a sweet and a sip of water and promptly went back to sleep.  He looked so little curled up in the massive hospital bed!  Two hours later, the nurse and I decided he really did need to wake up and pestered him until he did, then fed him sweets, crackers, raisins and nuts until he perked up.  The good news was they decided we could go home though, instead of back to Epsom General, and he could continue on oral antibiotics rather than IV.  So Nick came and picked us up and I have rarely been so happy to see him!  Ordeal (mostly) over.

Ben is still very tired and a bit sore but so, so much better than he was before the surgery.  He's having to have the dressings changed every other day which is pretty painful for him at the moment but he's getting there and I'm so very grateful to all of the lovely NHS staff who have looked after him over the last week.

So, training has gone completely almost off-plan this week but I did still manage to fit in a spin session on Thursday evening and then a long ride with my lovely friend Reinet this morning.  And far more importantly, Ben is home and recovering, so I'm going to take that and be happy :-)

https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/SusannaSpeirs

Four weeks to go!

So I got an email yesterday that completely and utterly terrified me - "One Month to Go until Prudential RideLondon"!  I can't believe I only have one month left before I have to line up on the start line and try to keep cycling for 7 ish hours.  That really is not very long at all.

So, although what I kind of want to do is stick my fingers in my ears and sing "la la la" very loudly (!), instead I've been trying to stick really hard to my training plan.  I'm trying to get on my bike 4 times a week: -

• cycling to work and back twice each week, once with a Box Hill loop thrown in (which makes it just over 20 miles return);
• a spin session (usually this Global Cycling Network HIIT video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiDD_aqdnK0); and
• a long ride on the weekend (started at 30 miles and hoping to get up to 75/80 miles before the race).

When I first decided on this plan (not my own, stolen with pride of course - see here if you're interested: https://www.cyclinguk.org/cycle/training-100-mile-ride), the bit that really scared me was the long rides - I don't really like doing a route I don't know by myself.  And how do you find the right length of routes?  So I decided to start cycling with a club and emailed Epsom Cycling Club to see if I could go out with them.  They were super welcoming but I still felt like a very nervous 11 year old going in for my first day of school on the morning of my first ride with them. I REALLY didn't want to go.  Felt sick and panicky.  Not helped, when I arrived at the meet point, by the fact that they were all in matching cycle jerseys on bikes that looked way better than mine, and all knew each other.  I'd never cycling more than 30 miles before and they were planning on 50 miles.  And they were bound to be faster than me.  But I forced myself to go up and say hello and start chatting and everyone was so friendly and lovely.  Admittedly I was the only girl in a group of 14, but they made me feel super welcome all the same - loads of them came to ride alongside me and chat and, by the end of, I was raving to Nick about how awesome going out with a Club was!

I've ridden with them a couple of times and its been fantastic.  I don't have to plan a route - just turn up and cycle.  The time goes much faster when you're in a group as well.  My favourite character from the club, I have to admit, is Brian. Brian is 74 and has been cycling for about 70 of those years.  He organises most of the rides, both the long rides and the time trials.  From what I could see, Brian knows the roads around Surrey and the neighbouring counties in about the same way as a black cab driver knows the London roads.  And which cafes do the best cakes.  Brian always drops to the back and makes sure that no-one gets left.  He checked in on me a few times in my first ride to see how I was doing.  And he cycles 40/50/60 miles each weekend with a group of people about 30 years younger than him.  I love Brian.  He doesn't worry about being the fastest in the group or doing the longest distance - just enjoys getting out in the gorgeous countryside around here, with a group of lovely people, and rides at his own pace.

So when I started panicking a couple of weeks ago about how unprepared I felt and how much faster than me most people I talked to about RideLondon seemed to be planning to ride, I tried to think more like Brian and just focus on enjoying it and getting to the end in my own time (which I still think is going to be about 7 hrs 15 mins).  I did a 65 mile ride by myself that weekend and actually really enjoyed it (well, most of it - it was very, very hot!)  I didn't panic once.

So I've been trying to be more like Brian ... keep plodding through the harder bits of the training and enjoy the long rides in the knowledge that it will make the race a lot easier (and hopefully faster).  Having said which, I decided to go cycling with the RAC Club this weekend and was again, really quite terrified by the thought of cycling with a load of very fast and, I suspected, pretty competitive men.  Turns out, they're all just as friendly and welcoming as Epsom Cycling Club.  I was still the only girl though ...