Well HELLO there! And nice to see you... It's been a while. I have missed you!
Be sure to watch my first video update (which is at the bottom of this blog) -  I am quite technologically challenged at times, so I am very pleased to have learned how to edit videos.

Life has been busy, as it often is for many. I am afraid that blogging fell by the wayside for a while. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am a teacher. What I failed to mention is that I care an AWFUL lot about my work, the achievement of the students and the quality of teaching. This year I have been Co-ordinating year 11, making sure that they get the best possible results. I am so proud of what we have achieved so far this year, and I am already looking forward to seeing the results that many of our lovely young people get in the summer. This has taken a lot of work so I have been prioritising work for a while.


But, I know that I also need to make time for some FUN! So... I have been training (cycling). A little.

An icy morning sunrise

I also have been getting more into Yoga to supplement my cycling. I especially loved my stormy Yoga session on the beach a few weeks ago. So energising! So far I have noticed increased flexibility and strength in my back and legs in particular. Also, it is a great way to relieve any stresses of life. But more about Yoga later!

Facing the storm

A balance

Other times it is just nice to go for a good old fashioned walk on the beach with the dog and the boyfriend. This is a walk we filmed on my new Go-Pro (Hero4 Silver, I love it!). We used a harness on the dog to film some of the footage, and the rest was just hand-held or balanced on the ground. This is my first video editing experience and I used I-Movie. Easy peasy!

Another blog post sooner rather than later, I think... :) 

Time to get started!

This weekend was simply amazing. I finally picked up my bike (Giant Liv Avail 1) from Spiral Cycles in Ashford on Saturday. The guys at the shop were great and recommended some local cycling clubs to me to check out. They helped me to kit out my bike with bottle holders (white, of course, to match the bike), an under seat bag for essentials, and a set of lights. I went for a more expensive bright front light (200 lumens) because a lot of my cycling will be in the evenings on the way home from work. Sadly, it will soon be getting very dark in the early evenings but I'll still want to get out training! How do cyclists normally manage that?

So, anyway. The best thing about my bike is that it is Finnish flag colours! I grew up in Finland and I am half Finnish so I guess I liked that. 

I had read somewhere that the best thing to do when you get your new bike is to practice clipping in and out of the pedals at a park or on the flat. I practiced on this little bit of road by our house and Will snapped this photo. I was over the moon, goofy happy! But clipping in and out was easy - no problems at all, so I took the bike for a quick loop around the block before getting ready to go out.

The next day (after a slightly late night at our friend's pirate themed 30th birthday party), I decided to set off for a cycle. It would become my first proper cycle on my new bike. This cycle was about 43 miles - 21 miles or so one way to the pub for lunch and then I cycled back again. For a first cycle, I thought it wasn't that bad. Though I did wake up with a sore knee this morning!

                                                       

My first impressions of road biking as I was cycling along: 

1. Wooooaaaah! This is so fast!

2. Who put that hill there? That hill is definitely not there when I drive to work in the mornings. 

3. Ouch! Pothole. 

4. Was that the seventh fly I just inhaled?

5. Yay, down hill! But oh... I have to cycle up this later...

6. This is MUCH more fun than mountain biking. So much faster!

7. Potholes are more difficult to avoid when cars are so close!

8. I wonder how many times I'll have to cycle today's cycle to make it up to 930miles (Land's End to John O'Groats)

9. Wish I had some music. Do people even listen to music when they cycle? 

10. Best day. Ever! 

Tomorrow I plan to cycle home from work. I am a teacher and (newly) a KS4 Coordinator. So I am super busy getting everything ready for our lovely year 11's at the moment. But I am determined to find time for training and I will post up a training log on the weekend of my week. 

See you out there! 

That's one LOOOONG cycle!

At the time of writing this, I am extremely frustrated, but I just had to write this to share. 

I had this lovely motivational idea of plotting my entire (draft) cycle route for Lands End to John O' Groats on AA road maps, then sticking all the pages together in a long line. The idea was to be able to stick the entire route on my staircase wall for five reasons: 

• A visual reminder that "ohmygoodnessthisisreallyhappening!" - I need constant motivation.
• A reminder to get out and do my training because some of the hills on this cycle are going to be a LOT bigger than what I'll be used to from my Kent cycling
• A way to draft routes - add different routes in different coloured highlighters 
• Could add post it notes for points of interest for Will, my bf and support driver, to visit along the way
• Adding places to stay and other relevant notes. 

Firstly - why is there not a ready made map available of this section of the UK? Wouldn't it be nice if I could walk into Waterstones and buy a map of "End2End"? But no. Not available. So I thought I'd take matters into my own hands with AA maps. 

Anyway... so I managed to plot on a route, taken from the Cicerone Guide by Nick Mitchell. He has broken his route down into 14 sections or days, but I am aiming for 8 or 9 days, so the route will probably need some adapting anyway. It was good as a starting point for the first steps in planning, though. 

I then copied the route into an identical AA map, and then cut it all out, lined up the route and stuck it all together. 

The end result was about 5 metres of map.

That was all fine. 

Then. THEN. Then I had to recruit Will to help me to stick the map up the staircase wall. But the cello tape wouldn't stick and neither would blue tac. When I finally started sticking the map to the wall with climbing tape, we realised that the entire map was at the WRONG ANGLE and therefore would not fit. 

After another few attempts, and a minor tantrum where I swore and almost ripped the whole damn thing apart, we decided to have a break until the morning.

Will spent some time peeling the cello tape off the map so we could start a fresh with it tomorrow. 

I very much hope that we work out how to stick the map up in the morning...

This entire exercise has, however, taught me one important thing: 

This is going to be a LOOOOONG cycle! Eeek! 

Thank you for reading - a problem shared is a problem halved and all that! :) 

TRX training

I returned from a weekend in Bournemouth to find that my boyfriend (Will) had bought this gem! The  TRX is a great way to do a bit of toning. I don't particularly know what I'm doing on it yet, but there are hundreds of instructional videos and photos on the net to help. Tonight we just had a mess around with it. The TRX is basically a couple of loops on some adjustable straps, that you can then use to do various body-weight exercises. This should keep me busy until my bike is ready to pick up.  

As you can see, we have just used the 'over the door' attachment, but it comes with a loop that you can attach to a tree in the garden or a pull up bar. It's fun to use but harder than it looks! https://uk.trxtraining.com

Paddleboarding fun in Bournemouth!

This weekend I went to visit the fabulous Tamsin. A seasoned blogger, she helped me to set up this website. She is training for the London Marathon this year, so we swapped notes and thoughts on training... then promptly headed on a big night out in Bournemouth! This ended in us watching a beautiful sunrise at the beach and prancing about taking silly photos (see my Instagram - @saraoffinland). 

Just a few hours later we hired a coupe of paddle boards and spent the next two hours playing in the sea. This video (link below) shows just how much fun we had. If you haven't already tried it, I would recommend going to your nearest paddle board hire place and having a go! It is so much fun, and a good core work out too. We loved it. Thank you Bournemouth, I had a great time. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6ZNpjXGPvs

Many thanks to Tamsin for putting this video together. You can find Tamsin at http://www.littleglitter.org

The Challenge - Land's End to John O' Groats

A few weeks ago, some of my friends and I completed the National Three Peak's Challenge. We scaled the three highest mountains in Great Britain, and raised over £1400 for Macmillan Cancer Support. For most of us, this was a massive challenge. Perhaps I will write a post about the challenge soon - but first let me introduce the whole reason that I have started to write this blog. 

The Three Peak's Challenge was an amazing experience, but one that we could not all fully appreciate until our tired, sleep deprived and aching bodies had had the chance to recover after the night in a hotel. I remember very clearly hobbling down to breakfast in the morning (I had injured my knee), sitting down with a well earned fry-up and looking across the table at my boyfriend, Will. Suddenly the magnitude of what we had achieved hit me and it was with glassy eyes that I said, "This is amazing. Can you believe that we have actually done this?"  I remember feeling incredibly proud of our whole team. 

As we were on our way home from Wales on the mini bus (affectionately nicknamed "The Bin"), I decided that I was ready for the next challenge. I thought back to when I was 16 years old, and how I'd heard about some people who had completed the End to End challenge. I'd wanted to do it too. Imagine how much you'd see! At the time, I just didn't believe that I could manage it. Over the years, I had other priorities and never really imagined I would be able to cycle the gruelling 930 miles across the length of Great Britain. So I put that dream away in the proverbial box and hid it away until that day on "The Bin". 

I thought about the next challenge almost obsessively for most of the journey home. By the time we made it back to Kent, I had categorically decided to cycle Land's End to John O'Groats next summer. My wonderful boyfriend Will agreed to be my support driver. And here I am. Blogging my progress! 

I have fair basic fitness but I am not a cyclist. Apart from a few spinning classes and days out on my mountain bike, I have never really done any proper cycling. 

In this blog I will log my training, thoughts, feelings, observations and progress. I will post about all the things I learn on this incredible journey. And, occasionally, I may also post about other fun things that I get up to! 

Happy reading!