A letter from Joel

A letter from joel

One year, 36,500km with an average of 100km per day. Sounds easy enough [NF Edit NO IT DOESNT] but with a full time job working 45 hours a week this is a huge undertaken.

Why. Over the last year/6 months of living in London, I struggled a huge amount with my mental health and it came to a climax of attempting to take my own life in December 2015. After this I ended up moving back home to Norfolk and starting my life again. It was just over 5 years since then that I decided I wanted to do a challenge and I was ready to talk about my mental health struggles. Choosing CALM charity because at the time they would have benefited me hugely but I never felt that I could talk to anyone. The idea with cycling on average 100km per day for a year, is to highlight the daily struggle that people go through with their mental health.

I’m lucky to be in a much better place now and that I want to give back.

Routine.

Routine is what motivates me, I’m someone who finds comfort in a structured lifestyle. I’ve never found training difficult to do, the idea of a plan is what I enjoy. I picked doing 36,500km in 365days over doing 100km a day for a year because of recovery and I know that on some days work/life does take priority over riding my bike. Some of the early days were hard, the idea of covering this amount of distance was incredibly daunting but I started looking at weekly goals instead of the overall goal. I work 8am – 5pm, 5 days a week although long, the hours rarely differ so I can easily plan my riding around work. Below is how my week looks like;

5.55am alarm

6.00 – 6.30am breakfast for me and the pets

6.30 – 6.40am get ready for the commute

6.45am leave for work

8.00am – 5.00pm work

5.10 pm leave for home

6.00 – 6.30pm arrive home and sort out my nutrition

6.30 – 8.30pm ride my bike outdoors/indoors

8.30 – 9.30 eat, shower and stretch

9.30pm bed

Fail.

No challenge comes without failure, I’ve had a good amount of this since I started. The first one was a nasty crash with a big head impact that left me concussed. I had a few days off the bike and speaking to my GP, I could get back on the bike as long as it was light and on the turbo with no screens. It took a while to mentally recover from the concussion and I ended up having 2 weeks off work because of it which was much needed. The second was a knee injury that came from trying to catch up after concussion with a 10 hour turbo, this took a good few weeks to get better as I didn’t want to stop cycling again. I did a huge amount of strength work and I’m luckily enough to have a physio for a girlfriend who was hugely successful in sorting out my knee pain. The third big failure is my frame breaking during LEJOG (Land’s End to John O’Groats), although I didn’t realise at the time. On day 1 of LEJOG, I had a collision with another cyclist who was on the wrong side of the road going round a blind corner. The impact dented my lovely Isen all season and meant the frame was out by 5mm. I only noticed this when I got home after the trip and cleaned the bike, gratefully with a combination of Isen and Laka (Insurers) all has been sorted.

Mini challenges.

Having completed Lands’ End to John O’Groats in August, it really helped me get ahead of the daily mileage but it also gave me some purpose for a while. I loved riding a 54 hour week as it’s truly my happy place. Joining Team ASCND for #theracetonowhere was an honour which kept me going through August. Now I’ve got Further East and after that I’ve got 4 months left before finishing on the 23/01/2022.

Next.

I’m unsure of what I want to do after I’ve finished this because I know it’s a huge achievement. It’s obviously going to be cycling related so let’s see… I’m just happy when riding my bike and want to spread that joy.

Photo credits Lex Spedding website and Nick Frendo