For those of you who are feeling up to it and want to test your fitness with a group of fellow cyclists then this ride out could be a lot of fun and a great way to suplement your training.  It's on Sunday 27th Feb. The Eagle Club are a great bunch and very welcoming to newcomers, plenty of people there who can ease you into cycling and make it fun.

The route is around the Essex and Suffolk borders on undulating roads and a few of us from the Arch to Arc 2011 team will be giving it a go.  It's a 75 mile route with a decent cafe stop half way round (which I'll certainly need). For those of you who were on the Arch to Arc last year this is the club Glenn Grant's a member of.  Glenn and Vic did a sterling job of keeping us all together last year (which is just as well given I was struggling with my left from right).

Click on this link to sign up.

Hope to see some of you there, if not see you at the next one!

London to Paris training has begun and I've just done my first real ride out of the year to support Jane doing the Fred Hughes 10 Mile run in St Albans (she's the one with the pink hat and green top).

Jane's gone to all the effort of creating a 14 week London to Paris training plan for everyone so I guess the least I can do is try and stick to it, so it'll be a gradual build up of mileage and speed from now to when the plan starts on 21st March.

After giving my bike a good power wash and wipe down, chain clean and oiling, tyres pumped up I stopped making excuses not to go out and made a start.  I expected it to be really hard work but I found it surprisingly easy going.   I've got a lot of work to do on my endurance (my heart rate was a bit high) but managed 20 miles without feeling totally wasted .... at a reasonable speed using around 1000 calories (which must mean I can have a curry tonight ... yes?). It was a little cold but to be honest once you're pedalling you soon warm up and actually I was quite grateful for the cooler weather.  Given how it was today I may train on my mountain bike whilst it's still a little damp, I find it doesn't get as clogged up as my road bike and I certainly need to get some clip on mud guards, my nice new jacket is not so new as it was.

Anyway if any of you Arch to Arc folks live in the London or Hertfordshire area and you fancy a run out one weekend then give me a shout and we'll set something up. Don't forget, if you haven't signed up for the ride then now is the time to do it ...... The road to ride fitness has begun and so far so good!

Time to start losing those winter pounds (or in my case the summer ones as well).  I've started getting down to the gym on a more regular basis to prep myself for the road. This time last year I was in training for a 90km Cross Country ski marathon so I was starting from a high base, this year sadly I'm back to square one again.

In the next few days we'll be sending out a suggested training plan to everyone so you have targets and manageable goals to get you in shape for June which will be upon on us sooner than you think! It'll only be a suggested plan so feel free to do your own thing.  I'll also share a plan that another one of the team members has put together

It looks like the weather could be in our favour now the snow has gone, so getting out on the bike should't be such a chore.  So for me there are no more excuses!

I know I've asked this before but if any of you want to write articles, or you want to keep a blog about your training experiences then just let me know and I can guide you through how to do it.  It's pretty simple and can be fun!

Regular newsletters will be coming out as we lead up to the event so keep your eyes out!

I just received my copy of Cycling Weekly in the post today to find that the James Whale Fund for Kidney Cancer Arch To Arc Cycle Event has been advertised on page 89 of the magazine.

It's been a while coming but great to see that it finally got in.