Apparently bad luck does come in threes ...

Well, I've been to the PruRideLondon show and collected my pack ... but I'm not as excited as I thought I'd be by now as I came down with a dodgy tummy on Tuesday - I didn't think much of it until I tried to ride home from work - for some reason, it just felt really hard - like I had nothing in the tank.  Wednesday I ended up coming home from work early as I felt really off-colour.  I lay down to rest and woke up two hours later when the kids came home from their day out.  By 6pm I was struggling to stand up straight and look after the kids - thank goodness for my helpful big girl.  She may still throw the biggest hissy fits but, when I'm sad or not well, she has never yet failed to look after me.  Its Thursday now and I'm still feeling ridiculously weak and woozy - I came into town for meetings (and to pick up my race pack) but ended up coming home after about an hour as I started blubbering when someone asked if I was feeling okay.  Never a good sign when you're incapable of holding yourself together.  First my abscess, then Ben's and now this ...

The thought that I might not be well enough to cycle on Sunday is ridiculously upsetting.  I'm hoping that, with 3 more days of trying to be good and gets lots of sleep, my energy will be back up to normal by Sunday.  But what if it isn't?  I'm so bloody cross about the timing - after all this training - time and energy - that I've put into this, I just want to be able to cycle as well I know I can and not worry about whether or not I'll be able to make it to the finish line because I'm still ill ...

However, something that has cheered me up is my amazing cycling jersey that Sands have just sent over.  A few years ago a local Sands dad, who was doing the London Marathon to raise money for Sands, asked whether any of us wanted him to run a mile in memory of our babies. It meant an awful lot to me so I decided that I wanted to repay the favour with Ride London.  Sands kindly helped me with the logistics and found a friendly printing firm (Josh at Partridges -https://www.partridgesuk.com/) who printed all the names onto a jersey for me, for free.  So I now have this incredible jersey with the names of all the babies who I'll be riding the 100 miles in memory of.  Including, of course, our little girl, my sister's triplets (Alex, Sam and Will) and my cousin's twin, Sami, who died at 5 months old.  There are also babies born to Sands staff and trustees, members of the Surrey Sands group, and others of my friends and work colleagues.  It is a very stark reminder of how many babies are lost, how much heartbreak is caused and why Sands is so very necessary.  It is heartbreaking (and making me well up as I write), but it will also no doubt provide the best possible motivation I could have.

I decided to try to figure out when I'm likely to be where on the course - both so I know what I'm aiming for and to try to help those lovely people that are coming to cheer me on at various points.  Its really hard to do though!  Based on the route profile, I've tried to guess about what speed I'll be doing over which segments.


My start time is 8:44am which is actually really late - the last one is at 8:55am.  That gave me a mild panic when I saw what time they open up the roads again at various points - if you're not past the relevant points by the time stated, you have to divert onto the 46 mile route or just stop cycling entirely! How hideously embarrassing would it be if I couldn't finish the race because I was too slow?!

However, looking at the times, I think I should be fine.  The times I think (hope?) I will be at the various marker points are as follows:

Location                                                  Mile Timing
Start – Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park   0                  8:44am
Hampton Court                                       26.5 10:04am
Newlands Corner                                    48 11:31am
Westcott                                                  62.5 12:41pm
Leatherhead                                            75 1:36pm
Kingston                                                 85 2:03pm
Wimbledon                                             91 2:27pm
Finish – The Mall                                  100 3:04pm

For anyone who is coming to watch, you can track where I am on the route using my rider number (22201) using either the tracker on the Prudential Ride London website (https://results.prudentialridelondon.co.uk/2018/?pid=tracking) or using the app which you can find out how to download here: https://www.prudentialridelondon.co.uk/app-faqs/ (more accurate).

This will be my last post until after the event so just to say ... wish me luck!

https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/SusannaSpeirs