Story
<p>Middle age man (apparently!) realises that he wishes to set himself an affirming, 'I've still got it!' challenge and in doing so raise some significant money for a couple of great charities.</p>
<p>The <a title="Fred Whitton Challenge" href="http://www.fredwhittonchallenge.org.uk/route.php">Fred Whitton Challenge</a> is a gruelling 112 mile sportive challenge ride for charity around the Lake District, run in memory of Fred Whitton. It starts at Coniston, and the route includes the climbs of Kirkstone, Honister, Newlands, Whinlatter, Hardknott and Wrynose passes (that's all of them then!) When added up, this equates to approximately 3800m of climbing, or well over 10000ft. Many of you will know I luckily got to the top of Mont Blanc a few years back...but I didn't do it with a bike! If you would like to read a good article by someone who did it a few years ago, try <a href="http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/routes/north/345914/cyclo-sportive-fred-whitton-challenge.html">here</a>.</p>
<p>My aim, apart from to finish it, is to try to do it in under 500 minutes and my goal is to try to raise £1 for every minute I am on the bike. Apart from any middle aged man 'I've got to go for a wee and got to go NOW' stops, I intend to not get off my bike. This means missing all of the lovely free food that is put on during the day, stretching the legs, drinking tea etc, and just battling on drinking energy drinks, eating energy bars, and whatever you do with energy gels. </p>
<p>If all goes well, I have a personal goal of ducking under 8 hours. This would last year have put me in the top 175 out of 650 for my age group (veteran!) but will depend a lot on the weather being kind, some luck, and a very commited training regime.</p>
<p>To date, I have clocked up 3 consecutive 110 mile training weeks, and this will gradually escalate in the coming months until I am up to nearly double that. Keeping well, eating carefully, and being boring (no drinking the night before a cycle, less chocolate, early to bed) will be part of the routine before May 13th.</p>
<p>The first £250 of sponsorship I raise will go to the MacMillan Charity, which is the Fred Whitton's main charity, and the next £250 will go to one of my favourite local charities, <a title="Bendrigg Trust " href="http://www.bendrigg.org.uk/">Bendrigg Trust</a>, who help to provide respite care by taking young people with disability and giving them some astonishing outward bound style experiences. Do look at their site and see some of the amazing things they do.</p>
<p>If any of you are around for the big day and wouldn't mind cheering me on, writing my name on the road on one of the 30% gradient hills (it seems to work for those Tour de France chaps), handing me the aforementioned energy food/water bottles, I'd really appreciate it!</p>
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<p>Thanks for reading this, thanks for any sponsorship that you can give, and I'll keep you up to date through this site of how the training is going!</p>
Paul</p>