Work + Exercise = My Easter Holiday

     Good Morning! This week I'm trying to keep it as brief as I can manage. So first off I would like to draw your attention to...

some fairly boring website things (putting it first so people actually read it...) 
 
Website Things
1. I put a nifty little sign up form on the side of the blog; if you're keen on keeping up to date then submit your email address and I will send you a polite email alert whenever I update the blog. So far my mother is the only person to make use of this... so if you could please sign up that would help to cheer me up a bit.
2. I have moved where the blog is located; it is now on the navigation bar along the top rather than burried away in the One man, Two wheels, Three countries, and An Amazing Cause tab. I did this to make it easier to find as it is the most update part of the site, so might as well save you the hassle of tracking it down.
3. I wrote a rather motivational blog last week. I now feel really self concious about it but its out there now and I cant quite bring myself to hit the delete button, so you may as well read it (Sorry it's soo long!);
It is called Pushing Limits and Looking To The Next Big Adventure.

So on to the usual stuff...

Fundraising
     We are now on a massive £2440; thank you to everyone who has donated :) Any students that are reading this; I happen to know that loans go in soon, so if you fancy beng generous feel free to head over to my Just Giving page and donate!

Sponsorship     
     I popped in to my local bike shop, Pedals, last week and had a chat with the owner about sponsorship. He has kindly agreed to teach me everything there is to know about repairing a bike on the road side. In June he will bring me up to speed about bike repair which should be some pretty useful information to have! Also as it will be so close to departure day it gives me very little time to forget it all which has to be good! Check out my Sponsors page for more info!

Training and What I Have Been Up To
     I have been epically busy with uni work this week so havent had time to head out for any long rides; each ride takes anywhere between 6-8 hours which is not really something I can fit in at the moment. Hopefully I will be able to get out on the bike next week. If I can find the time I was thinking about doing a century, just so I can say I have. check back next week to find out if I managed it!

     To make up for the lack of cycling I have been hitting the gym extra hard and as a result have spent the entire week with epic muscle soreness. It may not sound too bad but considering I stopped getting sore from the gym about 4 months ago it shows how hard I have been pushing this week.

Fame
     For those of you that have failed to notice, I am now officially famous! Last week I had a lovely email from a girl in Australia, she found out about the bike tour through the National Asbestos Helpline facebook page. I didnt know that they had put my story up on their page so decided to google myself to see what else I didnt know; it came up with a fair few results. I got in touch with the Coventry Telegraph a few weeks back asking if they would like to write an article on the bike tour, as they never got back to me I assumed this meant no. It nows turns out that they did write an article but never told me... Anyways this article along with the Biggleswade Chronicle article has been reposted a bunch of times on various Mesothelioma and Asbestos websites, which is awesome. So thank you girl from Australia (I wont say your name to save embaressment) for opening my eyes a bit! Check out the Press page for all the exciting new updates.

Competition
     I have decided to run a very small competition to try and get some particaption out of you lot! Although I am aiming to cycle 2240km I will in fact end up doing more than this on the tour. This is due to it being very hard to plan a route that covers that sort of distance with the level of accuracy where by I would end up back at Papworth having only covered that alloted distance. To compensate for this lack of accuracy I will be making sure I go over; by how much, who knows... Therefore I am running a competition, whoever guesses closest to my end mileage gets a present that I will buy in Geneva (I havent decided what to get yet but it will be small and i'll try to not make it rubbish... maybe). So if you want to guess (and why wouldnt you!) post a comment at the bottom of this blog or on the Competition tab with your estimate. Once I get back I will tell you how far I went and whose guess was closest. I will then post (or hand deliver depending on where you live) the present to the winner. I will give you one clue, it will be higher than 2240km, so dont guess lower! If you're really struggling with an estimate there is an insanely rough version of my route here, I doubt it will help much but may be worth a peek before you start throwing numbers around.

Happy guessing!

Final Notes
     Thats about it for this week, I tried to make it short but fear I have once again failed. So have a good week and il catch you around the same time next week!

Cheers,
             Jamie x

Please consider supporting my challenge and donate to Papworth Hospital Charity, even if it is just £1 (I promise this amount is entirely acceptable and really appreciated!), it all adds  up and can dramatically change someone’s life for the better!