Warming Down!

OK it’s a week to go before we head off to Portugal and as I sit here enjoying the gentle browns and blues of a Khartoum dusk, I’m starting to think my training has not been quite so inadequate after all. You see there has been much concern from the chattering classes about next week’s weather forecast in Spain. There has been a debate from the British contingent as to whether it is in fact possible to cycle when the temperature gets above 30 degrees.

Over here of course it’s already 30 when you get up in the morning. In fact on Friday, I completed an 80 miler, finished about 11:30 and the temperature was already in the low 40s; read it and weep, Gentlemen...

The Khartoum Coach

Apart from high temperature training, my other distinct advantage has been training with Jonathan Lamont, who I’d like to thank for accompanying me on our somewhat buttock clenching rides through Khartoum. As I was saying to him this morning, as we waved to a nice man in a tank who though it amusing to track our progress with his 50 calibre machine gun, it’s more than likely that the last thing I ever hear is Jonathan’s soft Irish brogue whispering “It’s OK you can go, the lights are green”. Anyway Jonathan you see is a runner turned cyclist who used to be a member of the Irish international middle distance team and has a wealth of knowledge and experience about endurance training and riding, a rather useful chap to have in your corner.   

Well the training’s been going OK at this end, 120 miles last weekend and Jonathan and I did a 35 miler this morning to add to yesterday’s 80. We managed a respectable 18.3 mph average this morning and it certainly felt like we had been doing some serious work by the time we got in from our usual circuit around Khartoum.

The training route through Khartoum & Omdurman

It seems Jeremy has been wandering the planet with is bike, I think last weekend saw him peddling round the Isle of Wight, a couple of weeks ago he was to be found in Tenerife winning the ‘make up your own fantasy road sign’ competition.

The winning fantasy road sign

There seems to be lots of last minute activity related to getting the final route loaded into the Garmin trip computers, arranging airport transfers although as far as I can deduce, we still have no real idea of how we are going to get our bike boxes from one side of Spain to the other so we can get our bikes back to the UK when the ride is finished.

Katie...

There’s a lot of talk about ‘warming down’ back in the UK (I’d like to see them try that over here) This seems to take the form of Chris and Harley taking their daughters to concerts, Harley seems to have pulled the short straw by having to go to a Tinie Tempah gig, whoever that is. Chris on the other hand seems to be coping with the idea of going to  Katy Perry concert with rather more equanimity.

Graham I understand is warming down with vast quantities of beer, barbeques and fish and chips.

Back in the UK next week, they are taking me out to see if I can ride up a hill, haven’t cycled up a hill since January!