Bike rides, Midnight walks and a visit from Grace

You may be wondering what has happened to the daily updates you were getting, well it's been a busy week all round so here's the catch up. We have had the school inspectors in all week at work so there has inevitably been more work but they were happy in the end and the school received a good report. I've managed to squeeze in a couple of short bike rides but the weather has not been fit really, we've been alternating between windy and rain. It's hard to know which is more unpleasant and if I'm honest it's the one thing that's bothering me.

Some of the countryside we crossed on our night time walk.

While I'm being honest I have to tell you that I'm also training for a long distance walk which the SRMRT are organising. The Crosses Walk is a 54 mile walk around the North York Moors which has to be completed in 24 hours. I'm intending to do this a couple of weeks before we set off on the bike ride so it will either prove to be good training or bad planning, we will have to wait and see. The walk sets off from Goathland at 12 noon and walks right through the night until we arrive back at the start. Last night Saturday the 28th we set out to walk the section from Spiers House to Sill Howe, we started at 8 pm and finnished around 3.30 am, Sunday morning. This was good practice at staying awake for the six of us, Drew, Pete, Shane, Helen, Steve and myself, we we're also supported by Gary who enjoyed the occasional nap while waiting our arrival. The weather was kind with a mild night dotted by only a couple of very light showers.

 Finally Grace payed her uncle Colin a suprise visit on Friday to the obvious pleasure of many of his freinds.

Hey guys!

Yeah I did have a few little bike rides over the weekend - although yesterday the wind was getting a bit strong so decided to miss today out. Tried that hill from Sandsend to Dunsley again but ended up pushing but it is getting easier. Got rid of the pedals that clip into my shoes as i just could not get used to them - back to old fashioned pedals now which are more comfortable and means I can jump off faster in an emergency!

I could do with dropping a bit of last minute weight too so I am stepping up the diet this week, and I am finding the balance/yoga class at the gym is helping with those achey legs.

Anyway gotta go and cook tea - back later! Col

Sunny Sundays

Out with the Mountain Rescue Team today training in Cropton forest. If you wasn't there you missed out big time. It didn't rain much and when the sun shone it shone for England. You know it's going to be a good training day when it starts by someone saying "There's been a terrible accident". We had four casualties to deal with, five nasty showers, only two hill parties and one pint at the New Inn at Cropton when we'd finished. Our party was ably lead by Dave who, fair to say, did a remarkable effort of keeping order. It's always good to practice the skills you have, as this is the only way it can become second nature when you need them.

Here two members of our party get ready to set off on the search again. This was after some off road driving experience.
On a different note I'm claiming the exercise I got today as enough to not need to go cycling tonight. While talking about cycling I haven't heard from Colin lately, I'll give him a text later to see if he'll post something for our entertainment. Now comes the shameless advert if you want to follow our blog then please click follow down the right hand side, you can donate by clicking here , you can follow me on twitter @Whitbyrog or copy www.gracesrmrtcharityride.blogspot.com and paste to your address bar to find us every time.
More later.

Keeping up with training

Well you don't always get to do what you want in life. Didn't go cycling last night cause I had team training and this morning Russ and myself we're joined by a couple of other team members to welcome some new trainees to the team. This just entails a walk around Dalby Forest to see how their navigation is and then it's back to base for paperwork and an introduction to the Teams' work. This all went well and they seem like a good bunch of newbies so we'll await to see them at their first training event. I'm still hopeful of getting a little run in this afternoon but I'll have to keep my eye on the weather. Anyway I'm consoling myself with the notion that you have too have a rest day or two every now and then.
Colin is out on his cycle today and I know he's logged it with Cyclemeter on Facebook, incidently you can follow some of our antics here. You can also request to be a friend which would be good, it lets us know that some people care. If you want to message me you can get me @Whitbyrog on twitter. If this bike ride has done one thing it's got me in touch with modern technology.
I'll add to this post later when I've either been for a ride or a pint, you never know Colin might tell us how his ride went. COME ON COLIN.

As if there's a place called Ugthorpe

Thought I'd have a longer ride tonight. Been watching the weather all day hoping it was going to stay fine. Set off up Skelder with the intention of going to the turn off for Mickleby then back to Whitby on the coast road.
My big problem is I need to slow down and try to enjoy this rather than treating it as a race, so I saw the sign for Ugthorpe and thought, why not. Having negotiated a right turn I was back on the empty country roads. This was good and it wasn't long before Ugthorpe was bluring by on the slight decent. Then came the ford so from here I knew it would be up hill all the way to Lythe. From here the steep bank took me quickly down to sea-level and I'd forgotten all about the long pull up Skelder.
Out of Sandsend is a drag up to the golf course, I was passed here by some young lad on a faster bike than mine and I tried to catch him all the way back to Whitby, no chance. I should be grateful, he kept my average up to 11.85 mph over 16 miles of hills, not bad for an old one. I'll see if I can get a short run in tomorrow.
Cheers for now.
P.S. Just want to say hello to all the bloggers from across the water, we. Be had some from Spain, Italy, Germany, the US and obviously many from the UK.

Hey hey! Get me blogging!

So 2 months to go and I feel just about ready - more because I feel really dedicated to the trip and know that mentally I can do it, physically it is going to be hard - but if it was not going to be a challenge what would we be achieving?

Lots of time at the gym and now on the final diet push - heading to Filey on bike at the weekend, hope the weather stays nice.

Anyway, more from me later ;) Col

The training schedule

This post will essentially be a list of the training runs I do while getting fit for this epic trip. They will follow a format like this;
 10.79 miles, 10.60 m/hour average.

Map: here. 

This tells you how far the run was, the average speed and the link will bring up a map of the run with split times for each mile. So there's the first one, when we do the run for real I hope to post a link each day which will have details of each days achievements.
Todays (19-May) effort = 16.15 miles, 11.85 m/hour average.
Map: here.

Cycling News

If your interested in cycling challenges you need to click here.

Twirlies on tour

Some of the Scarborough and Ryedale Mountain Rescue Team members including myself have been walking with the 2 ladies doing the Coast to Coast walk today. This was their last day and they were both in good spirits. We set off from Grosmont in full sun with a steep climb up onto the high moor, this presented no problems for the now seasoned Twirlies and the conversation flowed all day. We had two stops on our way to the coast, one at Midge Hall to sample the cream scones and be assaulted by the pebble police. The second stop was at the pub in Hawsker, just to avoid a nasty shower, but sadly the nasty shower followed us in.
It now rained intermittently all the way to Robin Hoods Bay but they were to close to the end to have their spirits dampened. Much celebrating took place at the bottom of the bank with even a bottle of pink champagne being produced, the rest of us had to make do with Theakstons. Judy and Gail had done a good job of completing the walk across the country but just as importantly they had raised the awareness of the importance of Mountain Rescue. For that reason we should all be grateful. Well done Twirlies.
If you want to know more, follow their blog here.

Training runs

The North York Moors where we are training for the epic ride.

Some of the scenery around the Norh York Moors where we have been training.

Just over 2 months left.

Been averaging about 10 mile a night during the week and having a long walk at weekend. We got our first donation on our justgiving site today.
Here's some info about Grace, she's one of the reasons we're doing this. I'll add some more info soon.

Grace Murray is Colin's Niece and was born in January 2004 with Quadriplegic Cerebral Palsy.  This form of Cerebral Palsy affects all four of Grace’s limbs, her speech and her rate of growth.  Although Grace will turn 7 years old in 2011 she still has the body age of a 6 month old baby.