Bryony Hooper is the winner from our competition with Threshold Sports which will see her and a friend gain entry on the UK’s largest multi-day cycling sportive, the Mitie London Revolution. She will be updating us with her training progress right up to the event, so stay tuned!

The Mitie London Revolution: Training Blog

Like with any fitness regime – if you don’t keep it up, you can quickly loose momentum. And unfortunately at the beginning of 2015 I felt like I had lost some of that hard earned fitness I’d gained in the saddle from the summer before.

My cycling became mainly limited to the occasional commute to work, and those long sunny weekends in on my bike started to seem like distant memories. I had all the signs of winter biking blues when I stumbled upon the Total Women’s Cycling competition.

But, now I’d won the place on this mind-bogglingly long ride, something HAD to be done about my fitness! But where to begin??

How to: Ride and Enjoy your First Sportive

Thankfully the event organisers have come to the rescue and sent over a training plan that should help me increase my mileage in time for the big ride. Plus Total Women’s Cycling has also recently published a training plan for 100 mile sportives which shall certainly come in handy! And while racing to the traffic lights as a kid was fun, London traffic can make sprint/interval training a bit tricky. Therefore I will be looking in to watt bikes classes soon (once I’ve overcome my fear of pulling another glute muscle on a stationary bike!).

In a bid to improve my fitness in the New Year I also joined a local cycle group. Not only will these group rides improve my confidence with riding in a group situation like a sportive, it has given me the opportunity to explore my local countryside with friendly and like-minded cyclist. Plus – There is nothing more motivating than seeing other people ride up a hill without having to resort to pushing their bikes to convince you it is possible. Some of them even smile while they ride up them!

As well as joining a cycle club, I’ve taken to bringing my bike with me whenever I go. So rather than spend a long weekend with friends eating cake by a log fire in the countryside, I donned my lycra and headed out on to the roads with my friend Lorraine aka Cycling In A Skirt (there still was cake, but it was well deserved!). My bike is also coming with me this weekend to my hometown of Bournemouth, and I shall be sneaking out at the crack of dawn before any Mother’s day activities commence to get a few hours in the saddle and earn my Sunday roast!

So while I am still a bit nervous about how quickly the months are slipping by (incidentally I’ve perfected a rather impressive death stare for when anyone utters the words ‘oh, but that’s not far off you know?), I think I can safely say that I’ve got some of my cycling confidence back. And the fitness will (hopefully) follow shortly!