4am - the buzzer goes off to wake me. Unfortunately the music lulls me back into sleep. Luckily I had set a second alarm to play the Baywatch theme tune at 4.30am to ensure I was up.
5am - Tom's knocking on the door, ready to take me to Clapham. Still running around getting ready. Hope in the car and we are off....whoops forgot my water bottle so back home to pick it up (we were only 5 mins away). Am now Tom's slave for the next couple weeks.
5.50am - Arrive at Krista's house to pick up my bike, ring her and wake her up. Luckily she had only been to bed for 3 hours so was still semi awake (ha ha ha ha). Cycle off to Clapham South to meet up with the team.
6.10am - Arrive at the meeting point and the team starts turning up. We all look amazing in our shirts. Nat calls, her brother overslept and was late picking her up! Luckily he wasn't too far away and she gets to us by 6.35am. We then head over to the VIP tent at the start line - free food & drinks. I had some hashbrowns, mushrooms & bacon with a lovely cuppa tea in the sun waiting for our start time. Finally we have our team photo and head off about 7.30am.
Time? Who knows, it has now become irrelevant. So between 7.30am and 2pm :
Obviously Nat & I went off at our own pace (last of the Lend Lease bunch) but we were doing good. Chatting away cycling it was brilliant, then we sped down the first hill outside London. If this is what the ride was going to be like, I was excited. NO. We got to the first hill and whilst we were going to ride up it (not really) there were so many people we had to walk up it. We paused here for the first video diary. Hard work but getting there.
Next stop was past the half way mark. I think we were doing ok, and the sun was out but not too sunny. At this stop we refueled, ate (again) and then got back on the bikes to cycle on.
3 - 4 hills, flat countryside and a drink stop later we finally arrived just before the bottom of THE BEACON.
2pm onwards: This hill was reminiscent of Mount Killimanjro back home it was that massive. People were actually cycling up but Nat & I were pushing our bikes up. Even the act of pushing was exhausting. Princess is not light bike. I just kept putting one foot in front of the other with the mantra "It's for charity" running through my head. Finally get to the top and what a relief. I vaugely remember the views (lovely) and after a brief drink and mars bar (tasty) we cycled on along the top of the Beacon, when suddenly we have black clouds over us!
Kaboom - the heavens opened up and as the wind was coming in at a 90 degree angle. It felt like someone was throwing gravel in my face. We pulled over for a pic, everything was saturated. And then we had to go down the Beacon in the pour raining. Very scary actually. It was extremely steep and people were hammering it down. I kept the brakes on lightly the whole way down and didn't breathe easy till we hit the bottom outskirts of Brighton. It was still another 4 miles into town to the seafront.
3.10pm - Nat & I cross the finish line to loads of cheers for the Lend Lease team, who were sitting in the marquee eating & drinking, waiting for us to finish. A brilliant ending to and extremely physical & mental endeavour.
After we stuffed a hamburger & salad i was ready to go. Had brought my thongs so was able to take of my saturated shoes & socks. We then cycled along the boardwalk to the coaches and managed to get our bikes & bodies on the 4.30pm coach home. I must have dozed off because next thing you know we are in Clapham.
6.30pm - After waving the others off (Mark, Neil, Nat, Steve, James, Andy, Jamie) I cycled to Clapham Junction station for the train trip home. Don't think Tom was too keen to come back and pick me up after the 4am start! Luckily the train took me all the way to Wanstead Park and I only had to cycle a further 5 mins to get home.
8.30pm - Walked in my front door. Washed (brilliant REALLY needed to do that), started to watch telly but fell asleep so went to bed.
As i was obviously soooo tired and out of it last night it's no surprise what happened this morning:
Alarm goes off, automatically I know I have 1 hour to get up dressed and out the door. So I do it and get to the bus stop but no one is there. Strange as there are usually the same people waiting. I get my phone out of my bag and look at the time, 7.05am. Yes you won't believe it but I set the alarm for 6am instead of 7am. I was now an hour early for work!!! What to do???
Macca's breakfast - delicious. What an end to an amazing adventure.
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