Where to Begin?

The whole thing started abut a year ago, my wife Gemma had recently returned from conquering Mount Kilimanjaro with two of her equally crazy mates, raising a cracking sum of money along the way.  Obviously scaling a mountain nearly 6000m above the sea wasn't enough and she was busy looking through websites at other crazy adventures.

Now I don't mind walking but I much prefer to be on my bike so the focus turned to cycling challenges.  One that caught our attention was a ride from Tibet to Kathmandu which just happened to pop into the mount Everest base camp settled at a nice 5,200m above the sea.  Sounded great, sounded hard, LETS DO IT! was the cry.

Research completed and the trip was booked, all Gem's handy work I must add.  We were in October now so had a year before we set off.

Then the thought of actual trip began, 75K of riding each day with over 1,000m of ascent.  Eugh training, and I assumed lots of it.

The next decision came about should we try and raise some money for charity while off on our little ride.  Once we decided we are the choice of charity was easy and it was to be Jane Tomlinson, this was the charity Gem and the girls chose when the did their walk. Not only does the appeal go to great causes that are close to both our hearts, they are genuinely a fantastic organisation that really took a personal interest in the whole event and made them feel the amazing amount of money raised really will make a difference. A few emails and a meet over lunch and I was already felt to feel like I am doing something special without even having a just giving page set up.  Let the pressure commence!

I biked a fair bit already so thought it may not be that bad so decided to ignore it all until Christmas.  With Christmas came (what wasn't at the time but is now) a great present to Gem from her big bro Mark.  What this present was, was  a full, almost life size detailed training plan from January until we set off.  This thing is amazing is broken down into the am and pm of each day giving exercises, times and intensity for everything, this thing must have took ages to make and would not only be a great training guide bit also the wake up call telling me a couple of bike rides a week was not going to cut it.

And so hit the new year.