12 hours and counting!

I really can't believe it is now about 12 hours before I join almost 200 other riders and cycle to Paris to raise much needed funds to support Bloodwise in their fight against Blood Cancers.

I have raised almost £1440 so far. My target is £2000 and I would like to ask you to help me reach my target before I set out on tomorrow morning.

The ride is 291 miles over four days. We assemble at Eltham Palace at 06:30 on Thursday and arrive in Paris at approximately 16:00 on Sunday.

It is a privilege to be part of this event and I could not do it without the support of people like you. So please may I ask you to click on the picture below and go to my justgiving page and make a donation - however small or large - as the advert says "every little helps" https://www.justgiving.com/Stephen-Maxted2/

Finally, if you have friends that you think might want to sponsor me please do ask them to join you in supporting Bloodwise by sharing this post about the ride on Facebook or Twitter. You and they will be helping the approximately 38,000 people diagnosed with blood cancers each year. Thank you. https://www.justgiving.com/Stephen-Maxted2/

Life from Harriet!

I have just watched an amazing inspirational video. It's worth a blog all on its own. http://tinyurl.com/jzzop23

It is stories like this that have prompted me to participate in Ride London and ride from London to Paris for Bloodwise and raise money for reseach into blood cancers and care for the suffers. Please support me by visiting https://www.justgiving.com/Stephen-Maxted2/

Thank you

The Gospel of St.Rava - Training progress for Ride London and London to Paris 2016

Its been and interesting week week. Four training sessions, two indoors on Wattbikes at Cadence Performance (Crystal Palace) and two on the roads of South London. All of them started before 7am with me on my Giant Defy 3.

Thanks to Jack (Tuesday) and Rob (Thursday) the Wattbike sessions have seemed more brutal than the FTP test a couple of weeks ago. Tuesday's interval session of sprints followed by 4 x 4 minute 'zone five' efforts followed by max sprints seemed bad https://www.strava.com/activities/517479725 until Thursday, when Rob decided that it would be 10 max out sprint sessions in 40 minutes https://www.strava.com/activities/519164974 But, each of these tortures did have the appropriate warm up and cool down sessions.

What have I learned? First, I can keep going even when I thought there was no more to give; second my legs will turn the pedals at 154 rpm if I try hard enough, that will generate 740 watts and sent my heart to 160 bpm and I can still ride home afterwards.

Then finally the 'inside out effect' is that my road session this morning on my standard 18.6 mile training route, while not fast, was the fastest I have ever managed at an average of 15.7 mph in the gospel according St.Rava! https://www.strava.com/activities/519975588

Hopefully this will turn into Ride London in about five hours (dream on) and keeping up with the fast group on the Paris ride.

The whole enterprise is so I can raise £2000 for medical reseach by Bloodwise into Blood Cancer. Please do visit my justgiving page https://www.justgiving.com/Stephen-Maxted2/ I am 15% towards my goal of £2000 and would really value your support.

New hope!

I am using the following with permission from Martin Abrahams who is writing about his daughter Jess and the bone marrow transplant she has had within the last month. It is a moving story. A.L.L stands for 

Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia

I am doing the London to Paris (L2P) ride this year to help children like Jess

Martin writes: "I did L2P in 2014 whilst my daughter, Jess, was in maintenance for A.L.L. For those that don't know, Jess relapsed in September 2015 and since then we have been preparing for a bone marrow transplant and now we are 29 days post transplant. Jess is responding well. 

smile emoticon
"The reason I am posting here now is because despite all the odds Jess is still going, thanks to research and thanks to the one donor in the world that was a 10 out 10 match.
Jess made a thank you card for him; in return he had already written a few words but our transplant co-ordinator couldn't share them until we decided to make contact. It has been translated from German.

"My family and I want to pay it forward, as what he has done for us is priceless, so if this message helps motivate anyone with regards to the fund-raising or indeed the training, then it was worth sharing."

I am pleased I can raise money to help children like Jess. Please support Bloodwise by visiting my just giving page and sponsoring me. https://www.justgiving.com/Stephen-Maxted2/

below is what the bone marrow donor wrote to Jess

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Hello

Dear patient

I wanted to write a few lines for you today.

I am 57 years old, male and come from Germany.

I wanted to help and give you my bone marrow whole-heartedly.

I myself have children and even grandchildren and all are doing well. I am glad every day that passes that they are well and I love them more than anything.
I hope you are better soon and you will be healthy and you can live your life like any other human being and experience all the beautiful things in this life.

So in conclusion, I wanted to tell you that I'm really happy that I have been able to help someone else in this world.
It wasn’t easy for me to write these words but it was important to me to write a heartfelt message.

All my love,

Your donor.

Left behind on the hills!

I love being out on my bike and especially riding with friends.

The problem is that I am almost 15 years older than some of the friends I ride with and even more than that for a few others. The result, I get left behind when ever the road starts to climb. So a year ago I decided I needed to do some proper training and on 26th April 2015 I joined Cadence Performance at Crystal Palace. The aim was to stay up with the group but that has turned into the higher goal of being able to ride from London to Paris to raise money for Bloodwise, the blood cancer charity.  (I am the one with the beard!)

Proper training now includes WattBike sessions early in the morning (7am) twice a week. WattBikes are indoor instruments of torture designed to help you understand how well you cycle. You can monitor the power output of your legs, the relative balance of pressure on each pedal and your pedal stroke; not to mention heart rate. they also enable you to be tested. I have been introduced to the mysteries of FTP, MMP and training zones; none of which I knew existed before last year. 

This is a bit technical but the cyclists will understand I hope! I did a Functional Threshold Power test this morning at 7am at Cadence Perfomance Cycling and survived. My Maximum Minute Power has increased from 244W last August (based on a ramp test) to 262 W in Nov (from an FTP test) to 288W from today's FTP test. I am pleased with the improvement. Thanks must go to Jack Lynch the coach who has lead the Tuesday morning sessions so well; even if he did take us through sprint intervals before the test today. It's on Strava so it did happen, you can check it out

Why does the power increase matter you ask (or not as the case may be)? The first part of answer is that hopefully I can ride up hills faster because I can put more power on my pedals. The second and more important part is being fitter and getting to Paris. My aim is to raise £2000 for Bloodwise who support people with blood cancer and fund research into cures and treatments.

I need your help to reach my fundraising goal. Please will you help beat blood cancer and support my ride. Thank you.