The life of an endurance athlete is a lonely and painful one.

Rachel and I cycled 150 miles from north Cheshire to New Quay in West Wales last week. It is part of our ongoing training for the John O’Groats to Lands End bike ride we are doing for Sefton Village in June 2010. Up to this point we had done training rides of varying lengths, from 15-20 mile sprint rides through to 80 mile touring rides. It was important though that we covered a full-day distance of 150 miles, giving us a true reflection of what our bodies would be going through on the ride. This article tells of our longest ride to date.

Our route was relatively complex, given as cyclists we have to avoid all motorways. It took us down the back roads of Alderly Edge, down through Cheshire and eventually into North Wales. Oddly, we then darted out of Wales, just to travel back inside their borders a little while later on! Thankfully, much of the scenery and was nice fields and trees. In fact, for the vast majority of the ride our main company was sheep and cattle!

The road quality was generally very good (road quality affects cycling more than I ever imagined) and the Cheshire plains make for very forgiving riding. Hills were rare, and it allowed us to keep an average speed of 15-20mph, which is perfect average speed for the long distance rides. Any faster and fatigue quickly becomes an issue – any slower and the journey takes far longer, obviously!

Around 50 miles in, the effects of pedaling for 3 hours had caused tightness in our hip flexors, meaning we were beginning to suffer the first signs of the back pain so common in cyclists. Essentially, tightness in the hip flexors due to the posture of a cyclist, and the shortening of these muscles due to fatigue transfers to the pelvis. The shortened muscles try to pull the pelvis out of alignment, which in turn puts stresses on the discs of the spine, causing back pain. It sounds much worse than it is – although the effects are very painful at the time, it is acute, and a few stretches alleviates the problem almost instantly.

We settled for an impromptu stop on the side of the road, and embarked upon a stretching ritual that must have been an odd sight for passing motorists! The pictures show the kind of positions needed to really offset the problem. The stretches work, but ultimately the problem never fully subsides until the hip flexors are allowed to rest for a long period of time. All the stretches do is keep the effects at bay for long enough for you to carry on. As solutions go, it is very temporary but is all that is available on the side of an A road!

Steve stretching his hip flexors, somewhere in Wales

After this break, we carried on for another hour or so, until our blood sugars were on the wane and we needed lunch. When cycling 150 miles calories are incredibly important, and it is difficult to take in enough whilst riding. Despite the fact that we ate a large bowl of porridge with apples, sultanas and honey for breakfast, we had cycled 63 miles by the time we stopped for lunch – that is enough to warrant extra energy!

At lunch we both went carb-heavy, and took on extra fluids. We were only carrying a 750ml bottle each, and in the heat of the day and when cycling at a good pace, it is important to stay as well hydrated as possible. Dehydration affects performance at the best of times, so it simply wasn’t an option given the length of the ride ahead of us.

The real work started after lunch, where the terrain changed from the Cheshire plains to the hills of Wales. We were given a relatively easy introduction to the hills, with one or two steep, but short climbs. These intense hills really do tax your anaerobic capacity, but the upshot is the relatively quick recovery once you have reached the summit. Psychology plays a very important part when the going gets tough, and we will discuss that later.

Along the roads leading to the Welsh coast, you can see the mountain ranges in front – a foreboding reminder of what is to come. England had been a relatively easy ride – Wales is a country that is designed to push the touring cyclist as far as possible! Our route skirted around the lower reaches of the Snowdonia national park – home of Wales’ highest mountains, and one of the scenes of our last endurance challenge, the Three Peaks. Our previous trips to the area meant we were more than familiar with the challenges these inclines pose!

Leading towards the national park, the rural roads drop in quality and increase in frustration. As I mentioned earlier, road quality affects the performance of a road bike immeasurably. There is no suspension to absorb any shock from the road, the tyres are thin, and are pumped up to 100psi, so are not forgiving at all. These factors are great for performance on a good quality road surface, but on the old country roads that are battered by tractors, trailers and animals all day, they all combine to make you feel like you are cycling through tar. Our average speed dropped from 15mph to around 10mph. More importantly, at 15mph on the good roads we are cruising, not using much energy. On the poor roads, 10mph is a struggle, sapping much-needed energy.

The incline leading to the national park is the subtle, gentle incline that carries on forever. So subtle is the climb that you don’t realise that you have been climbing until you reach the top. It is at this point I found myself at my lowest. We were around 90 miles into our journey, had been cycling up a hill for over 10 miles and the road surface had been awful for about 15. I felt like I had nothing left – keeping a 10mph average was draining me of everything. I had experienced this kind of fatigue before, during the Three Peaks whilst climbing the mountains. It is a strange sort of tired – you can’t pin it down to one factor. It certainly wasn’t localised muscular fatigue that you suffer after a heavy weight set for example, nor was it the kind of burning in your chest you feel having just sprinted 400m. It is a general weariness, just a feeling that you are running on empty. I couldn’t force my legs to move any faster, and I couldn’t force them to push any harder. My breathing was fine, my legs didn’t bother me too much, I just had nothing left. I am not the wordsmith to do it justice – I just urge you to experience it for yourself to understand it properly!

A quick check with Rachel confirmed that she was feeling exactly the same. 90 odd miles was tough. We hadn’t entered into this lightly – we knew it was going to be hard, but I can say now that cycling up that long drag physically and mentally took its toll on me. My blood sugar was low, my confidence was low, my energy was low – basically I was worn out. When you are feeling like that, your psychology completely changes – everything is a challenge. Everything is so much harder – I was getting angry at the poor road surface, I was pissed off because the scenery hadn’t changed for miles, I was pissed off because the names on the election candidate boards hadn’t changed for what felt like hours. Your logical brain switches off and you cite ridiculous reasons for frustration, such as boring sheep or politicians! I needed something that allowed me to rest and recover for a short time and would lift my mood.

Luckily, what goes up, must come down. As I mentioned earlier, the incline along the valley road was so slight we didn’t even know we were climbing. It was only when the road started to dip and our speed increased slightly – the speedometer said 15mph, then 17, then 23 – we were coming down a huge decline! I stopped pedaling and freewheeled for around 2 miles – perfect! For those two miles we averaged close on 30mph – it would have been higher if it wasn’t a busy bank holiday weekend with a constant stream of traffic! Add to that the soaking road surface and reluctance to ride off a sheer faced roadside and you can see why brakes were applied!

At the bottom of the hill we stopped to refuel – there was no way we would have been able to carry on much longer given our low energy levels. By this point we were freezing cold, our backs had started to seize up and we still had 50 miles to pedal. At current speeds it would have taken us about 5 hours, so we had to get some rest out of necessity rather than pleasure. A quick hot chocolate and a mars bar and were set back on our way again – thankfully downhill for another few miles.

Eventually we reached Aberystwyth on the Welsh coast. A few navigational errors thanks to our Google map not being able to cope with the Welsh country roads meant we ended up climbing a few unnecessary massive hills, the kind that sap you of energy for just about long enough for you to wish you had never started cycling! After realising we were on a slightly wrong road, we stopped at a local ambulance depot and had some advice from a couple of paramedics. They told us to follow the coast road and we would be well on our way – we had about 25 miles left to go, and were really impressed when we mentioned we had cycled 125 already!

The coast road is incredible in terms of its scenery, but I can assure you after 12 hours of cycling its beauty was well and truly lost on us! The first obstacle arrives on the way out of Aberystwyth – a 400 metre mill that climbs at an incline of 20%. A tough test that was merely a taste of what was to come.

That coast road is among the hilliest of anything I have ever cycled. There are longer hills, and there are far steeper hills, but no road I have ever cycled on has so many hills in such short succession – every corner presented a new hill to just drain you physically and mentally. Every mile feels like 10, and the distance markers never seemed to go down. The rain was driving into our faces and the wind holding our progress at every turn. The night was closing in and the temperature had dropped to less than 10 degrees – not so bad usually, but when you are wet and have been out for 12 hours, it is a different ball game altogether!

We eventually reached Aberaeron, a small village that is about 8 miles short of our target, New Quay. I stopped to allow Rachel time to catch up, and spoke to a local man who told us how far we had to go. He also pointed out that we had a couple of massive hills to climb. I will be honest now – he was pretty overweight and didn’t look especially fit. When he said he struggled up them, my attitude was that if he could do it in his shape then it would be pretty easy for me…..Turns out he wasn’t wrong – they were a struggle! The hills were pretty awful – they were long, slow drags that climbed at a pretty aggressive incline. Although there were no signs stating the gradient, I would estimate them at around 15% and the fact that they took around 20 minutes each to climb tells me they were long. It was only on our return journey did we actually see how tough they were, and I was proud of us both for climbing them!

We struggled on in the rain, and when we finally reached our destination it was relief that will stay with me forever! We were freezing, soaking, our backs were tight, our hips were sore, we had saddle soreness, our knees had seized up and we were mentally drained. Despite this, the fact that we had been in a cycling-induced coma for around the last 2 hours meant we quickly forgot about the pain, as though it was almost not real. We refueled and then spoke about the trip we had just made and what we had learnt.

I was really happy we completed the ride – we are not cyclists really – we are enthusiastic amateurs who were bloody-minded enough to keep going despite the shocking weather and the pain. That, plus we had to carry on – there are no train stations that far into Wales! In all seriousness though, we proved to ourselves that the hills were hard but we are able to cope with them, and we learnt more about our nutrition. It is vitally important we consume calories regularly, but also that those calories come from a good source. Keeping blood sugars stable is vital – low blood sugar can drop your mood in a matter of minutes, rendering the whole ride a disaster. When you are feeling down, food gives you a sugar rush that must be like a junkie scoring a hit – it does wonders for your energy, enthusiasm and mood! Again, these are things you can only learn by getting out there and experiencing the effects of endurance exercise for such long periods.

The ride is looming ever closer now, and we are looking forward to getting it over and done with, so we can finally have a life back!

Keep in touch and we will keep you informed of progress!

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