These are excerpts from Aug 2008…
SUN.
So to the final 40 mile push, woke up – it was raining – bastard. I then found I had a flat – double bastard. Marrsy fixed it – he’s a dream isn’t he!!!…
Both knees and rear end very very hurty this morning – you get on that seat and its agony immediately, and you know you’ve got hours on this yet to go. Anyway decided to go down to pendine as that was a flatter route, except for the hill coming out of pendine, although you see that flat is a relative term, after two days of this shit gently undulating is like a maintain trail, anyway with the wind and rain in our faces we cycled to Pendine. Then I saw the hill, well its not really a hill is it? I managed to cycle about 20 meters up it, then had to walk, which in itself was a feat – it was ENORMOUS, massive, gigantic even the cars were struggling – I barely had the energy to push the bike up, marrsy was met at the top – looking at me with distain and looking as fresh as a daisy. So onward though the rain to Wisemans bridge. Had a quick stop here where Marrsy had a little capacino and I had CPR, through the tunnel to saundesfoot where a miracle happened – it was kind of sunny (the miracle didn’t cure my hurtyness tho). So from saundesfoot, up the worlds second largest hill to Tenby, though tenby to penally where we got slightly off track, but marrsy knew the route – he had deliberately taken me to see the “Worlds steepest Hill” (TM), and he informed my it was our pleasure to ride up it, i went up a little way then stopped and tried to breath, after a couple of minutes my lungs had acclimatised and I managed to continue upward, I met marrsy at the top where I overheard him speaking to his mother on the mobile (…yeah so he’s such a bludy wimp, and the slowest cyclist I have ever seen, so anyway I wont be back for lunch and at this rate I’m not sure I’ll make breakfast tomorrow…)
Over the ridgeweay to Pembroke/Pembroke dock/neyland and back though the new trail to johnston. A couple of mile later we split at under the hills and i took my final hill in one go to get to the top of Pembroke road and to the safety of a beer and my mothers.
All in all we were “active” for about 24 hrs, did around 170 miles and I think (marrsy can confirm) only achieved around a 10 mile per hour pace. For me it was the hardest thing I have ever done, both my knees hurt, the fronts of my feet, my shoulders and ofcourse the rear end.. Next time I would like four days, but at the very least it would be from west to east, heading into the wind for two days is no joke I can tell you…
Remember kids, cycling 15 miles a day does not get you ready for 40+ miles in the saddle – Cycling Hurts!