36,500km in 365 days - Cycling Against Living Miserably

I mean, I was still right, if anything I was more right.

"duration of symptoms.. lifestyle impacted" :P

Speed up your cleaning and do your eating and as much "life stuff" as you can from bed. :0)

Always

"life stuff" I mean this is calling the GF and sorting the dogs out and hoping the dogs have been walked otherwise I have to do that.

I already eat in bed :) No main meal as they're all cooked in advance and frozen but the additional high calorie snacks. Bombay mix gets everywhere...

I feel a lot better after having taken yesterday off work, a slow morning and a trip to Holt for lunch was just what I needed. It also meant that I had an evening to chill too which is very rare as all I do now is cycle :) I'm going to be stricter at the weekends with plans as I've been doing 1 social activity per day (Has ended up being 2 recently) but I'm going to reduce it to 1 per weekend and will persuade friends to join me on the bike more if they're able. I'm finding socialising exhausting at the moment but cycling 100km is easy, not sure how that works....

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Day 160.

I'm going through some highs and lows of this challenge at the moment, I'm approaching the half way mark but I'm feeling pretty flat. I'm getting pretty tired of feeling tired all the time now... With working a 45 hour week and riding anywhere between 22-30 hour weeks, leaves me with very little chill time and I need to sleep more. My routine has been fine until now, I feel pretty exhausted emotionally. Physically my body is performing well since I've gotten over the knee issues and I'm feeling exceptionally strong on the bike but the fatigue is taking it's toll emotionally.

I find it really hard to update this when it's going well, more because it seems crazy that at that moment I'm finding cycling 100km daily easy and a huge number of being struggle to exercise so I don't like to gloat about what I'm trying to achieve.

I need a holiday/LEJOG really, it's a shame it's been delayed by 4 weeks as I would of loved to start this on Friday like originally planned. The 30th of July just seems so far away...

Can you cut work hours? Or like, take a bit of cheeky nap time during the day or something?

Tiredness will make you grumpy and emotionally "swingy". That's why to 'normal' people I appear bipolar.

Eating enough? Food helps but it can't make up for needing more sleep.

Can you do something interesting/different for a mental reset?

I'd love to cut down my hours but that's not likely as my work isn't flexible at hours, old school family company that thinks you can only work in the office and you should be available at all times even on holiday. That's the reason I have 2 phones... I might just have to use more of my holiday and see if I can get some unpaid if needed.

That's literally me, very swingy and it only takes something like unexpected rain to make me grumpy.

Definitely eating enough, I barely stop eating throughout the day and my weight has been very consistent since I started. When I feel tired, I eat and drink. I might try and nap at lunch time, sadly I get half an hour but that still helps.

I'm looking at houses to buy atm which is something different and exciting. Buying with my GF is a fun prospect as we can actually get a decent house in a good location so the cycling is still good. I can't complain about the Norfolk roads for riding ;) We're trying to avoid the buy/move until I've finished this but that's only 6/7months away.

At 6 months, I could just buy myself a present to say well done for being half way... I have been thinking a lot about what I will do after I've finished. It'll definitely be race related but I'm uncertain to whether it'll be as a road racer or ultra related

You;ve upped your mileage quite a bit in the summer, haven't you? That's bound to make you more tired so a normal reaction.

What can you change? eg can you ride more at a different time of day - given the daylight...? Different bike, etc? Give it a lash at the weekend and do 400km in 20+ hours on a Saturday, then take three days off?

I did until the weather got c**p and now it's just doing the 700km, the hours have gone up as I'm doing the majority of it outside which nice.

Different bike will be nice, I really need to set up the TT bike but it needs painting as it was lockdown project that has never been finished :( The long weekend day is a great idea, I'll try that next weekend as having a full day rest or 2 would be lovely.

I've thought about gravel routes, e.g Peddlars way then across the coat path down to Aylsham and back down the Marriots way. It will be slow but a change of terrain will be fun

This is an epic effort. If you're struggling, I'd say there's absolutely no shame in giving it a break for a bit. There's no point in burning yourself out and affecting your mental health, especially considering what your purpose is.

There is this that uses some of Marriotts Way which might be good for change. You could ride back to Norwch way to extend it.

Thanks for this, i'll definitely use this!

I've made this route which I'd like to do next weekend:

https://www.komoot.com/tour/407279231?ref=wtd

Thanks, I'm trying my best. Some days are worse than others and I try to remind myself why I'm doing this and what I have already achieved. I should hit 10,000 miles today which is a massive achievement for the year and it's been less than 6 months

which is a massive achievement

hell yeah.

The weather has been ace over the weekend and I took a long weekend and managed to hit out 460km in the 3 days which was great. We also cycled to the coast with swimmers etc for a dip and lunch yesterday :)

Today is day 178 and yesterday I was 6km ahead of the total so I want to keep ahead now (well as much as I can). I hit half way on Friday too which is amazing, I'm feeling pretty strong at the moment.

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Happy half way

Thanks Hippy, it's all down hill now

Well done chief. Keep going.

How often are you getting through chains and cassettes etc?

I'm getting like 6,000km from the chains, which is good. I've been using YBN ones bought from Aliexpress and using Squirt lube. I'm not changing cassettes that much, been through 1 but I've gotten through 2 sets of GP5000s. I've got a set of Vittoria Corsas next which will hopefully get me to September

Hello, it's now 5 days until I start LEJOG: our route is 1001miles over 8 days which will be a lot of fun and help with the distance. We also plan to cycle back to Inverness :)

Although in frustrating news, I broke a lot on my bike yesterday... We went for a ride to essex and I split my new rear vittoria corsa, my handlebar bag which I bought from the chap who makes them on here (User error zip...My fault completely) and now i think my front disc is warped so I'll need a new one of them too... I love cycling. At least all of these broke before the trip and I can replace them now, annoyed about the cost because I just replaced the tyres but it's the nature of cycling as much as I do.

Yesterday was day 184 - 18,361km done

Mechanic may be able to true the disc rotor

I hadn't thought of that, is it the case of using an adjustable and a vice? I have all of this at work so could do that easily today.

Thanks

Pretty much, check videos on YouTube

They'd probably true them in situ using a tool (https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=rotor+truing+tool), but a flat jawed adjustable would be the next best thing. If you're using a vice, make sure to have some soft jaws, or even just clamp between two bits of wood. Also, depends how much it needs moved, you could work harden the metal moving it about too much. Small tweaks would be fine.

Welcome to the world of long distance cycling aka what's going to wear out/break today.

Rotors can be straightened (or just stick headphones in and ignore any rubbing noises) or you can just check that it's not caliper misalignment or different left/right piston movement.

Tyres - well that's unlucky (unless you have a habit of just plowing into rock gardens, potholes, glass, etc) and don't overstuff bags.

Both my zips broke during Badlands on my framebag but they'd done a lot of races so I knew they were going to go one day. Got Restrap to repair them at the end of last year.

The tools are just a prong that you tweak the disc with. Are you sure it's the rotor though?

https://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-help/disc-brake-rotor-truing

I've bent mine by hand during races - just try not to get skin oils on the rotor surface, ie. don't push the braking surface.