Adam's bike challenge. Stage 12: You are not alone

Adam Bradbury

02 March 2012

My least favourite question right now is: "How's the training going?" Because it's not going very well. Not very well at all.

In about 8 weeks I'm getting on a bike to cycle the 500 miles from London to Edinburgh in 6 days.

When I committed to this I fondly imagined that by now I'd be merrily doing at least a hundred miles a week.

But I'm not - so I have a mental and physical mountain to climb in March and April.

But three things are holding the sense of panic at bay.

The first is surely a perfectly human trait: to be in denial about something that needs doing - like a pension, or a fire alarm battery, or Han Solo really needing to fix that drive.

Sooner or later denial will stop working and I'll have to get on the bike for some long rides and discover how far off the pace I am.

That might be as soon as this weekend, if I can work out a high-carbohydrate snack to eat when in the saddle. I'm interested in something that's not a packaged cereal bar or tube of sticky stuff. Any ideas, please let me know at [email protected]

Second - I gather from colleagues doing the ride that I'm not the only one struggling to spend hours in the saddle on top of a working week. But the wise Tracey, our head of fundraising - whose vision the bike ride was - says that when we're labouring across the North Yorkshire Moors it's being a team that will keep us going. Our fitness and the wind might be against us but the force will be with us.

Third - and this is the big surprise for me - the fundraising is actually going OK. I've never seen myself as a fundraiser. But thanks to some biscuit making, songwriting (of which more next week) and more than 50 very generous people, I've passed a milestone on the money highway. This was to raise the minimum needed to take part.

Many of you have left messages of support on my JustGiving page - and these are buoying me up almost as much as the cash you've donated. Some of you haven't left email addresses. So I'll say it publicly: you've made a massive difference - thank you.

My next fundraising milestone is £5,000. At that point I'll cycle 1 of the 6 days in a polar bear suit. If you know anyone who would like to subject me to that, please let them know about my JustGiving page.

And if you fancy joining the ride for a day or two, you still can. Please come and be part of the team.

Adam Bradbury
Publishing & New Media Team