1 Day to Go - Looking Back

---

---

Well, after 8 months of training it's hard to believe that we set off tomorrow morning at the ridiculous time of 3am to head out to Lithuania.

First thing to say is a huge thank you to all those who have supported us so far. From our colleagues and friends in Barclays, to our families, neighbours, past work mates and peopple we have simply accosted in the street and via the pages of our local papers. Also a big thank you to the Novotel in Vilnius which is putting us up free of charge for our last two nights in town.

Looking back to August 2010 it's hard to believe that I came up with this idea on acaffeine fueled trip to my offices in Cheshire and harder to believe that I have managed to get myself to a fitness level where I can actually envisage myself completing this trip.

To put this into context, tomorrow morning I am flying to Vilnius to start a ~500 mile cycle ride around teh country, ending up back in Vilnius 5 1/2 days later. You might assume that a plan like this comes to a person who is used to cycling, who is reasonably fit and nows the area really well.

Unfortunately all three assumptions would be incorrect. Until August last year I had not been on a cycle for over 17 years, the best exercise I was getting was shouting at people on conference calls and I'd been to Vilnius once (just prior to this plan) on a recruiting trip.

I bought my first bike (an Apollo Kanyon MTB) and managed about 1.5 miles on my first trip. Not a brilliant start! But in less than 2 months I managed 25 miles (on nobbly tyres) and in 3 months I did my first 30 mile off road course, courtesy of Evans Bikes. The first was hard, the last was much much harder, but well worth while.

I'll add the pictures when I have more time, but suffice to say, over the next few months I shed several ibs in weight (2.5 stone to be precise) and got much better at cycling. I swapped the Apollo for a proper road bike about 4 weeks ago (C Boardman) and was impressed with the increased ease that this gave me with proper high pressure tyres and a much better gearing ratio.

Well that, in a nutshell was my training and what has lead me to tomorrows trip and my personal challange for 2011.

Keep reading to see how things go.

---