Where next?

We've cycled the bay cycle challenge. 81 miles apparently, I won't know exactly as my phone died half way through! It was a bit disappointing actually as we had set up a 'just giving' page the day before and had some kind and generous donations, so we wanted to update those who kindly gave for our cause.

The day started with cycling to registration, a nice little warm up, only registration took an hour and we got cold, however we talked to other people in the queue and time passed. We met a young lady who was going to cycle with her 'friend' but her lovely friend left her at registration and set off an hour earlier! My friend and I thought that was awful, she is no friend in our eyes, so we adopted the young lady to travel with us for which she was very grateful.

This challenge was described as 'mainly flat'! Well it was not 'mainly flat', however we cycled on and what we couldn't cycle we walked, no shame and we were not going to finish ourselves off on a 1:7.

Our adopted friend struggled, bless her and had a couple of asthma attacks, sick feelings and thoughts of she was never going to finish. We jollied her on kept her going, we were good new friends and assured her we would not leave her.

Signage wasn't good and at one point as usual we took a wrong turn! A lovely ride down a steep slope and along the flat, very nice! But we were wrong and had to walk back up said slope. At this point our adopted friend was talking of not finishing, she was told it was not an option, we had brought her this far and we would see her to the end.

The scenery was stunning, the sun was warm, lunch of cold pasta and tomatoe sauce and chicken was not really my thing but with bananas and oat cakes and energy gels we got by, oh and jelly babies, 3 eaten before a climb! There were check points to ensure we were all safely getting round and I believe they contacted you if you didn't arrive so that was good.

We set off at 9.18 and finished at 8.30pm, but it wasn't a race to us it was completing the challenge and we thought how ridiculous we needed to purchase lights when we never cycle in the dark, but we were glad of them for the last 4 miles (which felt like 44) along the cycle path in the trees leading up to glasson dock.

It was a long day, sore legs, arms, back, neck and anywhere else you care to imagine, but we had money for our cause and a determination to complete this 'pure challenge'. A sense of achievment and so pleased our new adopted friend who was very grateful at the end of the day for us looking after her, we told her to ditch her friend and get a new one!

Thankyou my friend Martha for a lovely, challenging day. Where next?