21/09/07 08:10

Update from hamsters - Chris Bob and Andy all out riding. 3 hours completed 75ks. They have endured riding in the dark! The good new is Chris has withstood pressure from Andy and has refrained from shaving his legs! U go Chris!!

Ebay Auction - Signed Kidderminster Harriers Shirt!

Hi All!

I've hyjacked the blog! Its Holly here (Chris's sis!). Just to let you know that I have put the signed KHFC shirt onto Ebay! The auction will start at 7.30pm (this evening - Friday21st Sept) and will end Friday 28th Sept). To find the shirt, please type KHFC Harriers Shirt into the Search box at http://www.ebay.co.uk/ AFTER 7.30pm this evening!!

Also, please look out for the Warton Park Golf Pass for four people, also being put on Ebay later the same evening!

While I'm on here - Good Luck Chris and the Crazy Hamsters!

Best fishes,

Holly

It's all a bit real now...

8am Thursday Morning. Pretty much packed and waiting for Andy to come over and collect me. We've got to spin round to Ginos to get the shirts and then down to Hire-it! for another photo shoot before the off. I forgot to mention the one we did the other day for the Redditch and Bromsgrove papers but I could get used to being "Papped!"

Hopefully the Wyre Radio will give us some shout outs over the weekend so tune into them on 107.2 if you are in the Wyre Forest Area. The crew fully endose Rob Ison!

I'll try and get my sis to get the Harriers Shirt on ebay over the weekend, and the golf day at Wharton Park. She'll put a link on here. Donate generously and get bidding!!!!!

I've got to admit, I am geting a bit nervous now......

Judgement day......

What can I say.... Thursday lunchtime we will be heading towards the channel tunnel to start our adventure.
I've got to say that now we are at the start of our event, I'm a tad apprehensive. We have done a far bit of training but I am still concerned that I will let the team down and die on a big hill. OK, maybe that's a bit dramatic but I have started to dream about the Alpe D'Huez climb, (sorry I meant have nightmares..!)
I am sure that once we start at "early o'clock", I will feel a lot better. The fear of the event soon disappears once you have mounted your bike and left the start.
The organisers have had a massive job in getting this event together and I hope that it all goes well. Who knows what will happen but I'm sure that we will have a great/testing time whilst in France.
A big "THANK YOU" to all those who have sponsored us and our families who have had to put up with the training we have put them thro......

Two pack Jen (50g, you know who you are!) will update the blog whilst we are grinding it out in Le Francais. Thanks chick...! I may regret that when I get back to work.

Adios amigos, bonsoir Rodney.

PS.
YOU, and I mean YOU, can still sponsor us at the "Justgiving" link. One day, it could be YOU who needs our charities help........

The final day....

Wow wow wee, what a final day it has been. Just picked up the beautiful van from MUDIE BOND who are very kindly loaning it to us. RA Davies have given us our policy schedule so we're ready to go.

Gino (www.mgsportswear.co.uk) will be working late on the shirts as I think he forgot to get them done but they should be ready for the morning. He's dead if they aren't - I have links to more senior Italian Mafia than he does!!!!!

Spend hundreds on more bike kit today to keep up with Andy and all that needs to be done is the packing.

I'm sure there are more thank-yous needed but will have to do them afterwards...

Oh cheers Neil Howarth (Kidderminster Harriers Asst Manager) who has donated us his playing shirt to auction off. I'll try and get it on Ebay tonight but if not look out for it next week. This best go for thousands!!!!

Right, so I'm going to try and get some wifi access in the hotels and give you an end of each day blog but in the meantime keep checking for regular posts from the latest Crazy Hamster Recruits Jenny and Ruth who will be the recipients of frequent text messages over the next few days and will update the blog as often as possible for us.

Send all of us texts or post things on here to keep us going,

Hope to see you all soon........ I really do hope! Chris

A few more to thank

Creative Landscapes have provided us with a voucher for someone to spend in their beautiful nursery. Check out Keith Southall's creations at www.creativelandscapes.com. Get your sponsorship in as we're going to throw this in with the signed 'crew t-shirt being raffled by all those people sponsoring us.

Soon to be on Ebay is a golf day for 4 at the very exclusive Wharton Park Golf Club in Bewdley, big thanks to them (www.whartonpark.co.uk) and hopefully the Harriers are coming up trumps with a signed 2007 shirt. The guys have all chipped in with some cash too so big thanks to them. In fact the defence was feeling so charitable this weekend they even let the other team score 5 goals!!

On a training note, we had our first full team ride on Thursday. 61k's in two hours. By god Bob's quick, that the fastest average we've done so far...

We got shirts!

Wow....what a finale. I was left a little disappointed last week when the German firm supposed to be sorting out our shirts wanted to up the cost by 50% due to a shortened deadline. We withdrew our order and set about sourcing our own.

I'm so happy to report that due to the generosity of a number of companies we were inundated with offers. If you are a cycle club and need some kits, please check out http://www.cycle-clothing.co.uk/ Carlton who runs this site send us some proofs and they are really good. Great material a bit like the Climalite stuff that adidas make.

Speeds in Bromsgrove have sorted us some shirts for day 1 and are really behind the 'crew sending us to France with all sorts of spares and stuff.

My massive thanks go out to my buddy Gordon who put us in contact with the peeps at http://www.russtler.com/. They've helped us out with THE most beautiful shirts you've ever seen. They stock some of the Twin Six range (http://www.twinsix.com/) from the US of A and have sourced some Alpe D'Huez tribute and Fat Cyclist shirts. Thanks to Debbie and Co @ Russtler. Legends.

Aren't they beautiful?

Ha ha Bloody ha!

Yeah, funny, in my desperation at wanting some lunch before dashing from the Redditch Salon across to the Kidderminster one to meet with the boss I happened to stumble across the sarnie van in the car park. Having had nothing to eat all day I thought I'd take the opportunity to pocket some lunch. Trouble is, Liz's sarnie van was out of sarnies so I bagged a sausage roll and a pastie. Baggy, the Grandad of the salon who insists on Heart FM on the radio, dobbed me in to Millerz hence the Ginsters post. Thanks guys. But for the record I am now 1 stone and 3 pounds lighter than when we started this lark back in March. Who needs titanium eh?!?! And Baggy, the trimmed beard will make you a hit with the ladies kid!

So, two weeks to go. Two weeks and we'll be arriving back. I dare not even think what pain I'll be in. AND IT'S MY BIRTHDAY! I spend my birthday in a van driving through France. Shouldn't be too bad though as it'll mean I get control of the radio (Mixture of Chilis and Prince there then - Ruth you have soooooo much to answer for!) And I have a sneaky feeling that Andy's bought me a really expensive birthday present too, it might involve Carbon Fibre and Titanium hmmmmmmmm. Despite what everyone else says about him, he really is a very lovely chap.

So what have we been up to? The shirts situation has been annoying but hopefully that will all be arranged by Friday and I'll blog them. Sponsorship trickles in but we could do with a last push. Hopefully we have a couple of good gifts coming in which we will be ebaying so keep an eye out. And both Andy and I have been out at the weekend putting in the miles. We're getting together tomorrow and on Thursday for a couple of big rides - Trimpley hill here we come!!! I think the plan is to ease off over the weekend and next week just get all our kit together. Oh my god, it is really close now....

Oh Dear.......pie monster!!!

Crazy Hamsters got wheels!

Oh yes, with the help of Jeremy and the very lovely people at Mudie-Bond in Kidderminster we now have transport.


They have very kindly given us the use of a Vito van/people carrier to get us to the startline and follow us along the way. Fiona our driver was heard to comment "I'm very happy with the guys choice of wheels for me, Andy is too tight to buy me a Merc but Chris has come up trumps!".

Although I actually have to pass on all the credit for the arranging to the Hamster Crew's part time Event Transport Manager Gavin, from Hire-It who made this possible.

To add the the great news and well worth a mention are RA Davies Insurance Brokers who have kindly agreed to cover the trip.

To both of the companies, a really big thank you from the 'crew. Much appreciated.

Skin burn

In three weeks time it'll all be over. Mixed with the apprehension of actually doing the challenge, that makes me feel pretty rubbish. I cannot tell you how good getting out on my bike and riding makes me feel. If I'm down, I jump in the saddle. Ask my mum if you see her. Often I'd come home after a crap day at work/college/school and I'd just jump straight on my bike and go out for an hour or so. It clears your head, you can put the world to rights and re-organise.

I usually go out on my own but riding with Andy is pretty cool now. We talk about all sorts. Oh, sorry, yesterday we went out for two hours and did 50K's. It seems really insignificant now to keep reporting the training rides. What matters now is making sure we are ready and that means slotting in a sesh as often as we can. Right, all sorts.... Yesterday we were talking about falling off. Andy had a pretty bad crash last year and I'm always coming off my mountain bike but we talked about loosing your bike at 30kph and slowing yourself down with your skin :o( I think I commented that your legs would resemble the hard shoulder of the M6 as you attempt to pick out all of those bits of gravel.

Well, as luck would happen, that's what my left leg resembles right now. Minus the gravel. You see I have quite an admiration for the blessed game. Football. I play twice a week in between riding, canoeing etc. And I don't like loosing. So tonight, when we were up by only one goal I decided to stretch out and steer one past the 'keeper, only I did so landing on my left shin and dragging it along the shiny gym floor, plucking out half the hair and depositing a few layers of the pink stuff in the process. My god does it hurt now :o(

Mental note: Don't all off your road bike!!

On the Team front, the sponsorship continues. We paid a load into our HSBC account today so I'll get a balance update soon. I've a few more companies to thank later in the week but keep passing this round, the more views we get, the more we're likely to raise.

Sorry for the less than happy tone of this one, I need to get out for a spin and organise a few things. In the meantime I'm off to rub some mint, lavender and marshmallow into my feet (x!) Until the next one....

PS I dont know if Jen (Larkin) reads this, but I just checked and I'm the lightest I've been since I bust my ankle two years ago. Thanks for noticing! x

Sponsorship Update

Sponsorship is going really well. If you head over to our justgiving.com site you'll see we've had £140 pledged there, Fiona's done about £240 in her office and we're slowly working our way around mine and Andy's.

What I do have to report is the very kind generosity of the following few companies who through Hire-It have supported us:

Martin Bell and the crew at Landscape Excel -http://www.landscapeexcel.co.uk/

The team at the DRP Group - http://www.drpgroup.com/

Jack Brothwell and all at Brothwell and Miles Ltd

Bryan Taylor and everyone at Just Trees - 01562 746976

These are all lovely peeps who are helping out our cause. Please check them out and use their services,

I think we're about half way to the £1000 minimum but lets see how far we can go. We still need some personal sponsorship (£175 x 3) towards the manufacture of some cycle jerseys (see blog) so if you can or know of anyone who can help out please get in touch ASAP chris@crazyhamstercrew.co.uk

Thanks everyone,

Chris

Update

Just a short blog to say we're still both here. I've been recovering from my mountain marathon - it really did take four days till I could walk downstairs without holding the walls! I thought it was a good time to take a few days off too. In a bizarre twist, I bought a kayak at the weekend and spent two days in the sea paddling away, maybe we can do something water based next year? Hmmm... Round a Caribbean Island.... The Amazon.....

Andy's dedication showed when he shortened his family holiday in France to return to the UK to keep training - oh? what? it was actaully the rain in France? OK so he's kind of back but I think he's headed to Malvern and you can bet he'll be telling me about all the hills he nailed on his bike whilst I've been in my boat :o(

Back to it this weekend....

Blogging from Heaven

... well I think I am. Mainly because I'm sure that yesterday, I died.

Ok, Ok, back a couple of steps then. Right, I kept this away from the blog mainly because even up until Thursday night, I didn't know if I was going to go through with it. With what??? I hear you ask. Well, on Friday I met up with my team and on Saturday we competed in the 2007 Snowdonia 7's challenge (see t-shirt for details).....

For those of you too lazy to click on the T shirt, it reads "22 miles, 8000 feet, 7 Summits, 1 Challenge". I can honestly say I think it is possibly the hardest single event I've ever done in my life. Oh, it was a running event too, no bikes this weekend :o(

This picture is a 3D map and I've drawn on the route but it basically went like this:

730am on Saturday, get over major anxiety of day before and get to start line in Llanberis. 8am GO!!! 74 teams of 4 race up Snowdon and boy did we go. We got to the top in 92 minutes, the pace was unreal. From here, we doubled back to another peak (Two down) and then back again before heading off Snowdon down to Pen-y-pass. I think we got here in about 2hrs30ish. My groin was killing from the run down through paths which better resembled waterfalls. Did I mention it had rained from the start? Well ok, it was raining. Loads. We stopped for 6 minutes to fill up water bottles and stretch before we got back to it and headed for the Glyders. Not direct, we had a river crossing to do where the water went above my waist (and almost to Dave's nipples!) and a trek across some bushy stuff before we followed yet another waterfall up, up and more up. The third peak was one of the Glyders and by now, my left foot began to cramp up. No shin splints, but this niggling away at the sole of my foot started to slow me. We pushed on through the weather (did I mention it was raining?) to the second of the Glyders and then down to the time check with 9 minutes to spare. If you didn't get here in 6hrs, they stopped you. My legs resembled Bambie's by now, not thin (like they ever will be) but very unstable.

Onwards meant another climb to the fifth and six peaks. We've been over 6hrs by now with only that one stop and Dave and I were lagging. Ryan and Simon were spurring us on though. After the sixth, there was a big descent, a horseshoe and then one final climb to a very craggy peak. As we left the seventh behind we caught up with some of the other teams and overtook them. There were lots of tired legs but the thought of being only an hour from the end pushed us on. When we hit the flat of the lake we were about 2Ks from home. From somewhere we all found spurts of energy to break into the odd run and thanks to Ryan bellowing at me we all crossed the line running. 8hrs 53 minutes. Of sheer hell :o)

The event organisers said it was the worst weather in the event's history. In total 74 teams took part. Only 26 finished. Three other teams did it from the salon and all four of us finished. The veterans came home about 40mins ahead of us, the girls (who won the female event - woop woop! well done) were about 20mins ahead of us and the mixed team about 20 mins behind so we were all very close together. We think we finished about 20th but await confirmation.

So....That was last week's training. Looking forward to the next ride now, see you soon,

Chris

Oh....you want to know how I feel now? Well, I can hardly walk. My left foot is killing and I hardly slept all night as my legs kept cramping. Going up stairs is OK but I just had to resort to my bottom to come down. If you want to know if I'm doing it next year, give it at least a couple of weeks before you pop the question.

Biggups - Dave, Simon and Ryan. I'd have never got round without the encouragement. Gordo and Dave for scaring the living daylights out of me on Friday with their pre-race planning. Ruth for the ONE text of encouragement I received all day (OK so I didn't tell you all that I was going), and Becki and Aide for the cups of tea this morning which kept me awake for the drive home. Legends all of you.

Lycra wasn't made with me in mind!

Breaking news.....

The CHC are entering a new era....today we opened our very own business/charity bank account with the lovely people at HSBC Bank in Bromsgrove. A big thank you to Ben who helped us out & gave us advice.

Well, what can I say, Chris is now officially a Secretary, of the CHC that is. I personally have become the chairman of the board but only because I look awful in a short skirt & high heels. Unfortunately, Chris is on his way to Snowdon to compete in a mountain challenge so there's no way he can defend himself. (unlucky!!) but I'm sure that you ladies out there can give him advice on how to stop those hairs poking thro the fishnets, oh my god, what a terrifying thought. Can you believe that he threatened to "break my legs" if I blogged him....
Fair play to him, he has been a little anxious today but with the support of his colleagues, I'm sure he will only stay in intensive care for a week or so.

I am off to France on Saturday to sample the wine & cheese. I have managed to "hide" my bike in the boot so I can get a few rides in whilst I'm away.

I have no doubt that Chris will take the opportunity to diss me whilst I'm away but just remember this.....who's the chairman?

Later....