As of Sept 2018 I’m starting towards my Bronze award.
For this I need to complete the following challenges/tasks.
A Physical.
For this I have chosen Cycling as my individual sport. My aim is to cycle for at least one hour per week over a 12 week period. Obviously there may be times where I’ll cycle for more than hour and due to it being in the run up to winter I may have to do further/cycle for longer to keep up at least the minimum requirements. Considering the possibility of bad weather towards the end of the year we’ll probably do more frequent/longer runs at the start when the weather is better.
I plan to use the Strava App on my phone to track my progress for each of my rides out. I’ll be joined with my Assessor – Craig McAteer for the rides.
We have agreed that we’ll both use the first ride out as a benchmark on which to base progress of the other rides. The first ride will be a relatively easy going run along the river in Maidstone and back and we’ll continue for as long as the hour will take us.
Future rides will consist of setting goals to beat based on previous runs. These will include increasing speed during segments or even taking alternative routes to increase elevation climbing to provide more of a physical exercise.
The first run. By clicking on the links e.g. where it says D of E 1, you’ll get the full details of speed, climb, etc. You will also see any photographs that have been uploaded that we took along the route – the map will show where the pictures have been taken.
Second run; annoyingly my phone died during the session so we had to resort to using my assessors log from the session.
Similar distance to last weeks run but with the introduction of some hills.
Third run.
Took the opportunity to visit some of the Tommies that were installed on the White Cliffs of Dover. The cycling distance was shorter but the hills were much steeper to go from sea level up to to the top of the cliffs.
Fourth Run.
This was an extended run with the addition of some steeper hills at the start We also increased the distance by 25% over previous runs. To be honest, my legs were done in the last couple of miles.
Fifth Run
Venturing out to introduce some roads to me to build my confidence of being on the road mixing with traffic. The route was primarily on quiet roads/tracks.
We managed to get soaking wet feet having to cycle through a very deep puddle below an underpass due to recent rain. Despite that we still cycled a further 14 miles with wet feet.
https://www.strava.com/activities/1956427387
Sixth run
With the M20 being closed this weekend we opted to head to the East where the back roads would be quieter. So we headed along Pilgrims way to Hollingbourne. The hills were tough today; I wasn’t feeling 100% so we changed route to exclude some steep hills and mud, instead taking some other back roads to keep away from the traffic. I don’t like it when there’s too many cars on the road.
Seventh Run.
Since it was almost our last run we took a trip along the river which was our original run. The recent rains made our journey quite wet considering parts of the riverbank were underwater.
Journey number eight.
Unfortunately we had to cut this one short. I was suffering from a headache, dizziness and also impaired vision.
Summary of the eight runs.
| Distance (Miles) | Height (feet) | Duration | |
| Run 1 | 14.7 | 340 | 01:34:45 |
| 2 | 15.5 | 536 | 01:38:40 |
| 3 | 7.69 | 588 | 01:24:27 |
| 4 | 21.33 | 1085 | 02:31:30 |
| 5 | 16.42 | 691 | 01:59:49 |
| 6 | 16.2 | 1152 | 02:00:04 |
| 7 | 14.1 | 184 | 01:43:18 |
| Run 8 | 6.6 | 512 | 00:48:14 |
| Total Distance | Total Height climbed | Total Duration | |
| 112.54 | 5088 | 13:40:47 |