Stepping It Up - Riding for Charity

  This week has seen the beginning of a breakthrough in my riding.  Previously, I've ridden may be 50km over two days on the Central West Bike Trail over two days,  and I once rode a loop to Morpeth total ,about 50km. But honestly,  they were numbers based on generous map reading. The Elephant in the Room  was that I was only riding about 30km a week. I wanted to do better,  or so I, keep telling myself.  But the reality is that in cycling "the numbers don't lie".

Meanwhile I was reading about cycle touring and recently iscovered bikepacking podcasts Wasatch were super motivating .  I knew that it I was serious about doing longer trips I had to start upping my weekly  numbers. But,  being 60 years of age,  I also knew I needed to build up steadily and  take time too rest and recover in between.  There'd be no use going out and doing a big number then pulling up with an injury.  I wanted to harden myself up without breaking anything physically or mentally.  

Then,  a few things came at me from another direction.  On 31 August I was having coffee with my sister and she told me a horror story about a family from church.  A pastor and his wife,  five young children,  the baby had been struggling with brain tumours from birth and had recently been given no chance of  survival.  Effectively,  she hasn't really lived and never will.  I was bowled over by the realisation that babies get cancer.

I recalled a recent post on Facebook that had grabbed my attention.  A friend of a friend washed asking for support to cycle 100km for a children's cancer research project.  Early next morning I checked out The Better Challemge - Kids Cancer  Project. Sign up for your own challenge,  get sponsors, you have September to compete your challenge.  This would not save that little girl,  but it may help other families, and it was just what I needed.  I pledge to ride 500km,  which sounded challenging enough from where I was sitting. Certainly easier than the challenge facing that little girl and her family. By nightfall I'd even rallied three sponsors and created quite some pressure to ride bibger numbers. 

 So far I 've logged  two riding days of 39km  and 18km  for a total distance of 57km as recorded by Strava,   Thankfully I'm feeling hungry for miles and my body  is holding up. My biggest challenge being to not go to hard too early.  But I have a strong sense that locking in with the charity ride is going to really see me take my fitness up to where I need to be before i can load up and go bikepacking.