Personal Challenge - Raising money for Southampton General Hospital

My dad died 11 years ago on 21st August 2005. The reason he died was due to a number of things including, heavy smoking (60 a day), eating all the wrong food (poor diet) and no regular exercise over a number of years.

I decided while out cycling on 21st August, that it was time to get myself back in shape and a more regular rider of my mountain bike. I am going to cycle the equivalent of 11 miles a day between 21st August 2016 and 21st August 2017. This amounts to 4015 miles in the year. (more than I do in my car)
To allow for cycle day breaks, holidays, illness, workloads, bike malfunctions, Sfcsim malfunctions, extreme weather and other things that are bound to come up, I am going to just cycle as much as i can and deduct from the 4015 miles and hopefully get to 0 before this time next year.

In this time I plan to do 4 sportives of over 40 miles with one being 100 or over.

2 weeks in today and I have cycled 202.17 miles, which works out at 14.48 miles a day. Ok I know I am only 2 weeks in and the weather is still quite nice, but I am a determined fucker and even more so when it comes to cycling, something I love doing, so might as well put it to use.

So only 3,812.83 miles to go! If I am not the weight and fitness I want to be after this, then I never will be!!!

I have decided that I would love Sotonians to bang some money into the Southampton General Hospital fund raiser that is already set up. Just follow the link below. To see money donated will help me no ends to keep cycling.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/sotonians - please put a note ā€œCycle Challengeā€ so I can keep track.

I started at 16 stone 8 and had started cycling regularly for 2 weeks before starting this challenge, but today I am 15 stone 7. I also had a week camping with no cycling before the challenge.

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Cool idea - go for it.

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Great stuff - just chnage it all to Km so that modern folk can undestand what you are on about. :lou_lol:

It also sounds more impressive. My cycle metre was set up to KM and my first cycle was 30 miles, I was well impressed, then found out, oh 19 miles then! Dam!

So what is the best thing to do if I want all the money to go to Goatboyā€™s charity?

You could make it interesting for yourself by comparing your ride distance (total) to actual distances between places, it also will break down a huge total into smaller easier to acheive targets, and you can tick them off as you go e.g.

603 miles - Lands End to John Oā€™Groats

877 miles - Southampton to Milan (via the A26)

2500 miles - The width of Australia

Once round the Moon is too much at 6786 miles but maybe you could save that one for next year :lou_smiley:

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Attend more than half of Saintsā€™ home games

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An impressive plan and great start. go for it

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At work we use a thing called LoveToRide against which you can log your rides, there are also ā€œcycle to workā€ challenges during the year in which you can win prizes.

The interesting thing is you check your progress against different challenges, after finishing the TdF I am currently 456 mils into a route around New Zealand.

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Are you suggesting I cycle to home games? As I have said all along, my season ticket was mainly so I could go to see Saints in Europe and get away tickets. I will try and make half of the home games though. You have to remember that my business is also busier at the weekend, so to book 2 days out hits me in the pocket!

Good way to rack up some KMā€™s though! Weā€™ll let you get the train back as itā€™s uphill.

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I have updated the original post.

Donate to help keep me driving towards the goal I have set.

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I am sure there have been some other charity stuff going on in this forum - would it be useful to have a Charity category so we can have them all under one roof? I have a colleague whose husband is cycling from Canada to Mexico to raise money for SANDS and been sent another request for a donation. We could share them on here just in case anyone else is feeling kind hearted and generous.

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Thing about charity activities is that many involve ā€˜raisingā€™ Ā£2000 or something to take part - so in effect many donations pay for said person to have a holiday doing the thing they loveā€¦ :lou_facepalm_2: which may make me sound cynical, but as someone who cycles and has done many charity rides, I do have a good idea about these things. In all my events , I have arranged my own stuff, so all costs were covered by meā€¦ so any monies donated went direct to the charity.

This is why I like what sfcsim is doing as money goes to charity and not to fund Simā€™s adventure across Africa or somethingā€¦ so I will happily donate :lou_smiley:

Does this make me a Bastard? possibly, but to often I get asked to support colleagues kids to fund their ā€˜Raleigh garp yarā€™ adventure, or cycle across USA where the charity will only get money AFTER the costs are coveredā€¦I ask them if its OK to donate direct to the charity to which they often seem to think I am a cunt?

(This was not directed at Intinikiā€™s post, as had not read when I was writing this. I do not know the circumstances of her Friends husbands charity ride, but I do struggle when donations are used to cover costs, which for these sorts of trip are v expensive)

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Originally posted by @Sfcsim

My dad died 11 years ago on 21st August 2005. The reason he died was due to a number of things including, heavy smoking (60 a day), eating all the wrong food (poor diet) and no regular exercise over a number of years.

I decided while out cycling on 21st August, that it was time to get myself back in shape and a more regular rider of my mountain bike. I am going to cycle the equivalent of 11 miles a day between 21st August 2016 and 21st August 2017. This amounts to 4015 miles in the year. (more than I do in my car)
To allow for cycle day breaks, holidays, illness, workloads, bike malfunctions, Sfcsim malfunctions, extreme weather and other things that are bound to come up, I am going to just cycle as much as i can and deduct from the 4015 miles and hopefully get to 0 before this time next year.

In this time I plan to do 4 sportives of over 40 miles with one being 100 or over.

2 weeks in today and I have cycled 202.17 miles, which works out at 14.48 miles a day. Ok I know I am only 2 weeks in and the weather is still quite nice, but I am a determined fucker and even more so when it comes to cycling, something I love doing, so might as well put it to use.

So only 3,812.83 miles to go! If I am not the weight and fitness I want to be after this, then I never will be!!!

I have decided that I would love Sotonians to bang some money into the Southampton General Hospital fund raiser that is already set up. Just follow the link below. To see money donated will help me no ends to keep cycling.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/sotonians - please put a note ā€œCycle Challengeā€ so I can keep track.

I started at 16 stone 8 and had started cycling regularly for 2 weeks before starting this challenge, but today I am 15 stone 7. I also had a week camping with no cycling before the challenge.

For moral supportā€¦ I will try and keep up with you as failing miserably with Papsweb fatclubā€¦ and need to try and lose 3.5 stoneā€¦

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Yeah, I needed something to stay focused and the trusty mountain bike does it for me. This challenge is more about the miles, paving myself and not the speed, even though my average speed has already increased by 1mph over the last week and I am not pushing any harder. So the fitness must be improving. Normally I am looking to get faster and faster, but it is really nice to take in more of the scenery than have head down spinning!

Fat club was not doing it, but I also need to keep rowing as I love that and it might come in handy during the next floods, when I have to swap the bike for a boat!

Fat Club ate itself. :slight_frown:

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Fat club exploded, weighed down by its own self importanceā€¦ Not sure what that fat twat Gay Abandon was doing.

Sfcsimā€¦ I have been doing around 200km a week in July and August, but am now away with work again 3 /4 days a weekā€¦ (the hotel food and drink weightloss killer :lou_angry:) but its the winter months up North that is the real challenge - have bought new winter kit for this year, so hoping to keep things going,ā€¦In the past summer is usually 800-1200km per month, in winter falls to 200-300 :lou_sad:ā€¦ not goodā€¦ hoping your tales of suffering and struggle will inspire me to keep going! :lou_lol:

Sfcsim, maybe set up a small Strava group to follow progress?

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You donā€™t have young kids do you??

I wish I could go out and do that, the sum total of my rides is the 16 mile round trip to work plus extra if I go a different route.

11 year oldā€¦ when at home I get up and out at 0500 am-0700am (50k ish) weekdays so back in time for breakfast choresā€¦ Saturday is long ride day for 3-5 hours but starts at 9 only after I have already done shopping at Tescoā€¦ rest of weekend I am taxi driver, chore slave, builder/DIYerā€¦ Its alos why winter is more challenging as pitch black up North until around 8amā€¦ ;-(