I wrote this for the school website but figured I might as well put it on here.

Time is such an odd thing. There are days when every hour appears to have been stretched so that it is at least 5 hours long and there are others where the whole day appears to have been compressed into just a single hour. The same can be said of weeks, months and years.
I don’t understand how it can be that Christmas feels so very long ago, but the preparation and training time I gave myself for my Lands End to John O’Groats ride seems to have disappeared in a flash. I am sure that I have had some lessons that lasted longer than the whole of the last four months. Still the time is nearly upon me, with less than two weeks to go now. I should be leaving Lands End at about 7am on the morning of the 29th - ahead of me lies 900 miles of road.
People have started to ask me if I am ready for it, and my answer is the same every time “I think so… I think I am as ready as I can be. I’ve done a fair bit of training, I have done two weeks of half distance, one week where I did half distance every day, and one where I did a full day’s distance every other day. I just hope that I can put everything together.”
The thing I don’t know about is how my body will react to having to perform day after day without a let up. I tell myself that I should be fine; after all, the pro riders ride the sort of mileage I will be covering day in day out and at just short of twice the speed that I will be doing. But then I remind myself that those blokes are super human; they have the benefit of years of training, expert nutritional advice and the benefit of daily massages to help their muscles recover and repair. Then there are times I decide that I am over thinking the whole thing and that annually there must be a fair few people who take on the challenge and that most of them are successful so what’s the problem? Just ride, eat, ride some more, eat, sleep, eat, sleep some more, eat some more and repeat this each day for seven days.
I have now cut right back on the training; before Easter I was covering in excess of 350 miles per week, fitting rides in before work and at the weekends. Now, however, I have cut right back. My ride to and from work is only 6 miles each way. I have, however, been getting out for a worthwhile ride on a Saturday. The reason for this is twofold; firstly, I think a well rested Holmes will cope better than an over trained Holmes but, possibly more importantly, it is to try and avoid injury. It’s not that I am worried about falling off, it’s more a case of trying to avoid strains and niggles brought on through training. A month or so ago I suffered from some knee issues but I am hoping that I have seen the last of them.
I am certainly happy with the condition of my legs, but I think what is more encouraging is the current state of my head. Two weeks ago I set off on what I hoped would be my longest ride to date. I planned on covering about 170 miles (I wanted to know that the 130 – 140 miles I will need to ride during the week was well within my capabilities). The route I planned had several opportunities to turn for home early if I felt I needed to. The weather was poor to say the least; the rain was almost constant and the wind was gusty and quite strong. Each time I approached a possible ‘cut it short point’, I had an internal battle with myself, justifying why I should turn for home, convincing myself that I could go on if I wanted, that cutting the ride short would be the sensible thing to do in this weather. Nobody would know that I had cut it short because nobody knew how far I was hoping to go and nobody would think badly of me. Then something would kick in and remind me that I will not be able to cut a day short as I need to make it to my accommodation and pointing out that somebody would know – I would know that I had cut my ride short and, when it comes down to it, I was the one that mattered and it was my opinion of myself that mattered. Each time I managed to resist the turn for home; I finished the day nine and a half hours after I started, 166 miles in my legs and a feeling of ‘Yeah’ in my head.
The fact that so many people have been made aware of the ride has resulted in me already managing to raise a considerable amount of money, but it has also produced a certain pressure to complete the challenge. I am hoping, however, not to have to rely on this for motivation. I would hope that the desire to prove something to myself is sufficient to get me through the week. Time alone will tell.