Almost a 40 miler today!

Today (Sunday) was the perfect day for us to do 40 miles, but we were 2 short, according to our GPS - I reckon it went to sleep while we were in the pub!!

Originally we were going to do the Penzance to Zennor leg from the Phoenix Stroke Appeal ride, and then hop over the hill from Zennor back to Penzance. But this meant using the car to transport us and the tandem to Penzance, and with the fuel shortages it made more sense to do a different route and start from home.


So we cycled to Porthtowan from Stithians and then followed our route to Cubert via St Agnes and Perranporth, at all times keeping as close to the Coast as was feasibly possible. We had a nice lunch at the Smugglers Inn in Trevellas (killer hills around here!), albeit a little pricey.


We then came back home along the Newquay to Chiverton road - not a particularly safe route - many cars came far too close to us at high speed.  So I am glad we will be on very few A roads during the ride proper.

But apart from this, we had a good day out.  All hills were ridden, lots of other cyclists on the road giving us cheery waves, 36.6mph top speed down a hill somewhere and 38.56 miles on the clock.

Bibs revealed!!

As promised yesterday, here are our bibs and logos that we hope will become very recognisable once we start running / cycling around the County on April 28th.

So please, whenever you see one of these (two runners, three cyclists) - shout, holler, cheer us on and throw money at us for the Phoenix Stroke Appeal. But please, only notes, otherwise we might have severe problems with weight!!



We also had our interview with Radio Cornwall at 0840 this morning, so hopefully some of you caught us on that.

And now - on with the training!!!

Perfect weather for Tandem training

Like Jayne and David, we also took advantage of the fine weather this weekend to spend 5 hours out on the tandem, covering nearly 36 miles - our longest ride this year.  We only had to partially push up 2 hills - I think that could have been reduced to one, but I messed up the gear change near the bottom - none of this index shifting on a a vintage bike!
We did a section of Day 3 from the real ride, Gweek to Coverack and back via Helston and then returning home near Stithians.  Lunch was at the Five Pilchards in Porthallow, washed down with an excellent draught cider which undoubtedly helped us up the steep hill out of the village, despite the moans and groans from cold legs!!
Tomorrow morning (Monday), the team is being interviewed by Radio Cornwall at 8.30am, so we are looking forward to that.  I am not certain whether we are going out live, but tune in anyway!

We also now have the bright yellow bibs and flags, complete with our Round Cornwall logo and the Phoenix Stroke Appeal logo.  Photo to appear on this site very soon - in the meantime, here is an usual shot Gilly took with her camera today.

Weekend training 24/25 March

We made the most of the fantastic sunny weather to get out and practice some really slow running on Saturday. We also built a break into our 16 mile run, to get us used to eating and resting at regular intervals. This is going to be important for our recovery. Obviously it is tempting to go out too fast intially, and to keep on running, as we are both used to doing this in races. However, we will need to keep to a strict schedule if we are to get through to the latter part of the week's running. So we are aiming to split each day roughly into 8 mile sections. We will make sure that at each 8 mile point we stop, eat and drink.

My sister joined us yesterday, for the section around Stithians lake.

On Sunday, David raced in An Resek, a mostly off road 10 mile race at Helston. I jogged around the course the opposite way, and cheered on the runners as they came along the coastpath section just after Looe bar. I added a few miles on to make 15 for the day.

Running distances

I have just worked out the more precise distances for the runners on the coastpath. The total distance from Cremyll to Mead is approx 300 miles!
So this is the schedule:
Day 1: Cremyll to Polperro =25.9
Day 2: Polperro to Portloe=36.7
Day 3: Portloe to Coverack = 36.4
Day 4: Coverack to Penzance= 38.3
Day 5: Penzance to Zennor=34.1
Day 6: Zennor to St Agnes=31.1
Day 7: St Agnes to Polzeath = 44.7
Day 8/9: Polzeath to Bude=39.2
Bude to Mead (Cornwall/Devon border) = 9.5

Looks like a couple of fairly long days towards the end!

Weekend training.

On Saturday, David and I ran down to Portreath for the photo shoot. We were supposed to link up with Gilly, Geoff and Roz along the trail but I had put the wrong numbers in my phone so we sort of missed each other on route! However, these things are better sorted out now rather than on the Challenge itself. We did all meet up in Portreath and the weather held off and I think our photographer got some good pics. David and I then ran home via Tehidy and Carn Brea.
I ran the Falmouth Half marathon on Sunday. Again, lovely weather and a scenic but hilly course and some more miles in the legs, and I won a bottle of wine too! David ran along the coastpath near Maenporth and managed to get a bit of spectating and supporting for the half marathon runners.
Most importantly, my hip pain did not really trouble me but I will need to keep up with all the stretches and massage.

Team photo on Portreath Beach

Here we all are on Portreath Beach.  Hopefully you will see this photo, along with accompanying words, in the local papers before too long.

We all ran / cycled from our respective homes to get there. Roz Collins (Cycle and Trailer) the furthest at 28 miles round trip, Geoff and Gilly Mead on the tandem at 26 miles and Jayne and David Angilley, the two runners, an impressive 18 miles.  And despite the squally showers, not one of us got wet!

It was a useful exercise, as well, so see how cycle and trailer, tandem and runners all gelled together in terms of respective speeds. And the answer was even better than expected.  Could be different on the Round Cornwall though - we know there are some serious hills awaiting all of us.

We are hoping to appear on Radio Cornwall, the main sponsor of the Phoenix Stroke Appeal, in the near future, so keep an ear out for us! Meanwhile, training continues.