The other challenge

Preparing for this ride is going to stretch me in ways I've probably not yet come close to imagining. At the moment I can't conceive of how it would feel to ride back-to-back 100+ milers on consecutive days (which is the level we need to get to in training), never mind six 140+ milers on the trot. But the gradual accumulation of endurance fitness is a wonderful thing. What seems impossible today can very quickly become easy within a surprisingly short time. Before I started cycling seriously my best mate Simon told me he'd started covering 40+ miles in rides. I couldn't imagine covering such a distance in one go and thought I'd never reach that level, but within just a few weeks of building up the distances - mainly off-road chugging along the South Downs Way - it became not just possible but relatively easy.

The same goes for the 100-miler I did earlier this year. I started off being comfortable with rides around the 40-50 mile mark and built slowly from there. One of the things I did to build up speed a bit was to head to the local cycle track (in Preston Park, Brighton, just up the road from me) and do a bit of interval training. I started doing three minutes at tempo pace (a pace that's near the top of your aerobic capacity, so you can sustain it for a while but not particularly comfortably) and then recovering for three, then another three at tempo pace and so on. It was incredibly hard work the first time I tried it, but within a couple of months of doing this just once a week - along with road rides at least once a week - I was able to sustain that tempo pace for ten minutes, then 15, then 20. Along with the road rides and the occasional bit of hill work, this set me up perfectly for the big ride and I didn't really feel physically challenged that day until we were at least 85 miles in.

So yes, I know it's going to be possible to rise to the physical side of this challenge. But there's another side too: raising at least £2000 for the Bishop Simeon Trust, the charity that organises the race. I know it'll be relatively easy to raise the first £500 or so of that through hassling friends and family - maybe even a bit more as this is in such a different league to anything I've tried before - but raising the rest will be a different story. To do that I'll need to persuade strangers to part with their cash and that's never easy.

I've set up my page on Virgin Money Giving and if you fancy getting me off to a flying start then please feel free to do so - you'll be able to read this blog completely guilt-free for the next six months if you do! But it's going to take more than a few words on a blog to hit that target and I'm feeling just as daunted by that as I am by the physical challenge at the moment - perhaps even more so because I don't yet have the foggiest about how I'm going to do it. I've got some time to think about it because I don't intend to make a noise about this until at least the new year, but I know the time's going to go very quickly so my fund-raising thinking cap is officially now on.