Wild Wales Challenge Training at JGF Fitness

As mentioned in previous Blog posts the majority of the club has signed up to ride the Merseyside CTC Wild Wales Challenge in August. For a few of us, we need more than just riding miles in our legs to help us complete the 97 miles and 11,000 ft of climbing!! 

Jon Fairhurst, an original Vita and Palefish member, set up JGF Fitness in Moreton just over a year ago and has agreed to do a circuit training session for us on a Wednesday night. 

For most of us this is our first foray into the world of Gym's and circuit training. I was very surprised at how tough doing short bursts of high intensity activity is, and how much it hurts. Luckily Jon is very good at motivating us to try a little harder, whilst ensuring we are doing things correctly and not injuring ourselves in our quest for physical perfection!!! Sometimes the warm down stretches hurt just as much as the exercises! 

We are 4 weeks in and I think we are all showing signs of improvement both on the bike and in the circuit session. As with all exercise, it doesn't get any easier, we just get faster!! 

Jon took some photo's of our last session, and I hope they show the effort we are putting in to succeed in our challenge!!! 

For more information on the sessions that Jon delivers please have a look at his website http://www.jgffitness.co.uk/ 

Great weather but bad navigating (again!)

The plan for today's club ride was to get some miles into the legs, and build up endurance with an undulating route out to Delamere and back.
I thought it was going to be a big group today when 17 people signed up on the Facebook club page, but I wasn't expecting 28 to turn up at the Twelfth man.
Luckily a couple of others had the route downloaded on their Garmin's so we split up into more manageable groups.
All was going well until the first puncture of the day! This was only 15 miles in, as we arrived at the Boat in Ellesmere Port where we were meeting Darren and Julia who joined us for the ride to Delamere, and then kept on to Beeston.
All the groups came together whilst waiting for the puncture to be fixed, and then we headed off down the oil sites road and on to Elton.
I hadn't noticed that Degs was missing when we stopped, and as we were heading up the Oil sites road I noticed a light in the distance behind us so I eased up and recognised it was Degs! When he caught us up he explained his tyre had split, and because he was close to home he had gone back and changed his bike (almost pro all he needs is a team car to carry his bikes now!) What made me laugh though was that as he didn't have the route on his Garmin, he had been following our tyre tracks on the wet road. I couldn't resist the temptation, and now Degs will be known forever in the club as Tonto!!!!!!

The group regrouped again at the top of Primrose Lane, a good leg stretching climb, and headed off the the Station Cafe at Delamere.

I think the staff at the cafe were a little shocked to see so many cyclists, but the weather was great so some of the group sat outside to alleviate the overpowering lycra!

A group of faster riders, and eaters/drinkers headed off before the rest of the group, which left 23 of us.

Fast Fish heading off.

The Sunday Shoal

All was going well even the climb up and over Tirley Lane until on the descent Francesca got a puncture. Not normally an issue, except this time we were on a 10% hill!!! Once fixed we carried on to the main Tarporley road and then the real problem began. We turned into a no through road, which turned into a farm track, which took us to a path we have followed before!!!

I think I said last time we rode this (check out my previous BLOG post) I would always check the routes for the suitableness for road bikes. Well I failed again!! This time it was worse, it was muddy and very wet! It was almost impossible to keep upright, especially on the cobble bridges. Luckily everyone saw the funny side and didn't look to annoyed with my navigation fail!!

Easy does it!

Mud!

I'm not sure what happened to Ken!!!

Chris, on the cyclocross bike!

Alan Still smiling

The only casualty of the muddy cobbled path was Chris, who got a puncture. He was laughing saying he was enjoying the muddy path as he was on his Cyclocross bike and it was made for conditions just like these!! (spoke too soon I think!)

At the end of the path, conveniently there was a stream that was very useful in cleaning off the mud from the bike.

The rest of the ride seemed very uneventful after this, and we carried on towards Chester, then round the back of the Zoo (Thanks Dave for the suggestion) and then back to the Wirral via Deeside and the marsh path to Burton. 

When we got to Nets Cafe, a few of the riders decided to stop for a refuel, but I had to carry on as I was already running later than planned. 

Alan suffered the last puncture of the day as we rode through Heswall, and Kev suffered a broken chain as he rode home, luckily he had a spare link (must get one for my tool kit!)

The weather was great today, almost like summer at a balmy 5 degrees!! It was probably not the best day to test ride my new neoprene gloves as they were a little on the toasty side, and my fingers looked like I had been in a bath too long when I got home! 

The weird thing about today's ride was when I posted the route and ride on the club facebook page I added a photo. It wasn't until I was checking out when we last rode Platts lane that I realised the photo was taken on the day we rode the bumpy route last year!

So another good ride in the bag in the work up to the Wild Wales challenge, just need to keep it up!!

The diet seems to be going ok, although it is tough trying to be good all the time! I did avoid the cake today, and only had toast with my coffee. Training at JGF Fitness on Wednesday night was great, even the Mini Palefishers took part!!!

I lost a couple more pounds this week and have now lost 10lb in total. Hide the Salad please, I'm starving!!!!

Here we go again!

I can't believe it has been so long since I wrote anything in the Blog. It was all to easy to let the habit slip from posting sometimes three times a week to nothing in less than two months.
We are still working on the house, and I can't see that slowing up too soon, but I have been out on the bike in all weathers, covering more miles in the first three weeks of January than in all of Jan and Feb put together last year!
The reason for the high level of miles is to train for a particularly tough challenge ride that over 40 of the club have signed up to do in August.

Merseyside CTC organise a Challenge ride in north Wales every year, and to celebrate the 30th edition of the event, they have set a particularly challenging route which is 97.7 miles long and has just under 11000 Ft of Climbing. Those of you who know me, or have read my blog before, know that I really love hills (NOT)

http://www.wildwaleschallenge.com/index.html

I wasn't going to sign up originally but after a great email from the organisers letting me know that the club was going to be well represented and if all entrants finished the ride, we would win the most represented club prize. Now you know I'm not competitive, but I couldn't miss out on a ride with so many other fishes, even in the Welsh hills.
So, with my money paid and the realisation of what I have done sinking in, I have decided I need to focus on my weight loss ( I have managed to put on 2 stone over the last 2 years since the Tunnel Time Trial!) and face up to my nemesis,THE HILL!!!

Jonathan, an original Palefish CC Member, has set up a fitness business,JGF Fitness, and he offered to do a cycle specific training session for the club. Now, as well as the Tuesday and Thursday club rides, we have a Wednesday evening Circuit Training session. The session works on all the muscles needed for cycling, especially the Core muscles which are a set of muscles I haven't worked........ever!!!
It will be the third session this week and I have to admit I am looking forward to it. Even after such a short time, I feel as if I am seeing benefits. The main one being 8lb weight loss in two weeks, only 26lb to go!!!

In other news, the Club is still growing! As I mentioned earlier we have over 40 signed up to the WILD WALES CHALLENGE and even on cold wet night we are still getting good numbers turn up, usually over 15!!
We did a training ride into Wales a couple of weekends ago, just to test our fitness levels and to give some of the new club members an initiation into the delights of the Welsh hills. I was surprised to see 38 Palefish riders crossing the marsh path in Burton, and we nearly outnumbered the Bikers at the Ponderosa Cafe at the top of the horseshoe when the 23 that made it arrived!

The Palefish Shoal caught on camera by a walker (who happened to be a member of the club) crossing the Burton Marsh.

Thanks to Kev for the Photos. He kept riding ahead to a good spot to catch the rides in action

A rare photo of ME!! And an even rarer smile at the top of a hill!

Steve with his race face on!

Some of the group braving the cold at The Ponderosa Cafe

There are just under 7 months to go until the challenge. If my calculations are right, that means there are 81 training rides left and if I only  loose 1lb per week, I should be at my target climbing weight just in time!!

Well that wasn't as hard as I thought it would be! Hopefully I can be a little more regular with my updates in the future!