Pugh spies his homeland

Tiverton to Cheddar: 53.4 Miles

A reasonable morning, starting easy and then ending with a tough climb up and over the Quantock Hills. Legs feeling very tired and weary on all climbs - just plodded up every hill in granny gear, tried a few times to power climb up some of the hills, got about 20 yards and gave up. Apparently it is commonplace on days 4 and 5 to feel weary as the body is protesting at the recent continual overtraining, and then by day 6 or 7 it has adjusted. Passed into Somerset so that's two counties done now. Sat in a cafe on top of the Quantocks and asked the owner what the land was that I could see in the distance - it was Wales.

After lunch was pretty easy, a 30 mile cruise keeping the Bristol Channel on our near left most the time. Apparently we cross it tomorrow over the old Severn Bridge.

A little info on the other people doing the ride - eight in all. 6 guys, 3 of whom are late 50's / early 60's. Two of them regular cycle tourists, having toured many countries both in Europe and further afield. All of them are struggling up the hills somewhat, but nonetheless very impressive, I really hope I am able to do something like they are doing when I'm 30 years older. All of them were pretty depressed last night, the cumulative exertions of the previous few days catching up with them I guess. I'm sure they'll all be fine, they've done this sort of thing so many times before.

The other three are myself and a father and 16yr old son, the three of us keep roughly the same pace. The son is impressive to have the stamina to do 1,000 miles at 16 years old as at that age one generally has speed but not stamina (ones muscles change over the years). He's also doing it on a touring bike which is probably 15% or so less efficient than a racing bike. None of the three of us have "cracked" yet - we've made it up every hill without stopping. OK, only just - all three of us thought about it and got close to stopping - like when you've been climbing solidly for 20 minutes and are pretty knackered, you turn a sharp corner and all it does is get steeper - that's when you think "oh sod this", but we all just about made it up somehow.

The two girls - one is early 30's and the other is an American lady in (I believe) her early 60's, she's recently completed the cross america ride - 4,000 miles over 9 weeks, very impressive at any age, let alone at 60. She's here just for this trip and is using it as a chance to see the country.

What else is interesting - diet I guess. When I'm at home I'll usually skip breakfast, have a sandwich for lunch and then pasta or something for dinner. Not sure quite how many calories we've been consuming over the last few brutal days but by way of contrast yesterday I had porridge, followed by full english breakfast. Then stopped for elevenses - a large slice of chocolate cake and a packet of fudge. Then stopped for lunch - baked potato. Stopped mid afternoon for an energy bar and then went our for a Thai in the evening and polished off 3 courses. All washed down during the course of the day with 3 cans of flat full fat coke and a couple of cans of flat lucozade. And when I went to bed - I was still hungry...

Stats for the day:

Time spent cycling: 4hrs 10 mins

Average speed 12.8mph (highest so far, wahey)

Max speed: 39.5mph

Lowest speed: 2.8mph (lowest so far, up the Quantocks).