Once again this year I'm going to be trying to raise as much money as I can for the BHF, in memory of my Uncle, Ian Frame. Last year you all managed to help raise over £200 which was awesome so thank you all very much!

This year I'm planning quite a few events, probably about the same as last year with maybe one less marathon! The season is kicking off a fair bit earlier than last year though, the end of the month to be exact! (note: I started writing this in March so it's already started!) I'll go into a bit more detail about my race schedule in a later post, suffice it to say I should be kept pretty busy again… In the meantime, have a look at the race schedule over there on the right hand side of the page.

If you would like to make a donation and help support the Challenge for another year you can use my JustGiving page, which will be getting updated soon - I promise!

Once again a big thanks to everyone who supported the Challenge last year, I'd like to think we can do even better this year!

This weekend myself and Dave are heading down to Wanlockhead for the 2nd edition of the Souther Uplands Sportive, now know as the Radar Ride.

I've been getting some decent training in for this event, at over 100 miles long I needed it! I've been mixing it up between high speed blasts round a short loop and then this weekend put in a nice 65 mile ride, tracing the large majority of the Etape Caledonia route.

The key to this race I think will be to take it easy at the start, this isn't something that we can go out from the start guns blazing and expect to still finish strong, if at all! Apparently last year quite a few people did exactly that and went out hard and fast only to blow up on the later climbs. It would be very easy to go out incredibly quick as the first 7-15 or so miles are pretty much all downhill!

In a strange way I'm quite looking forwards to the final climb up Lowther Hill to the radar station, in recent weeks my I seem to have improved my climbing skills further still so hopefully I'll have enough in the tank to make a good effort of it. There's even a time split at the bottom of the climb to see who is King of the Mountain. I don't quite think I'd be up there with the leaders but it's nice to give it a try!

Radar 105 '09 Share your bike routes @ Bikely.com

Hello all, it's been a while since I've blogged anything (if you discount Twitter) on here so thought it was about time I blew some of the dust and cobwebs away!

I've not had any races since the Cairngorm Classic a few weeks back which has actually felt a bit odd after the intensity of all the racing in May. It's given me a bit of a chance to recover from it all but I've still be training pretty hard, especially on the bike.

This coming weekend myself and Dave are heading down to Wanlockhead in Dumfriesshire for the Southern Uplands Sportive aka The Radar 105. The Radar in the name is because the race finishes at the radar station atop Lowther Hill and the 105 is for the distance. 105 miles. Pretty far, huh?

I'll put up a full write up of the event later this week but I'd once again like to extend my greatest thanks again to everyone who has donated so far, we've broken the £200 mark on JustGiving and I'm sure there's still more to go yet!

If you would like to donate you can do it easily through JustGiving or the BHF Gift of Hope that's been setup in Ians name.

So that was event no. 5 of the season, yet another wet bike ride!

First things first, while the ride was wet, the route was really good fun! Starting off form the Cairngorm Ski centre the assembled riders gingerly made their way down through the cloud, no one wanting to make a mistake this early in the ride! From the bottom of the descent the route took us out through Coylumbridge along some pretty nice rolling forrest sections. I had managed to hook onto the back of a few other riders and was pretty happy to trail along with them, conserving my energy. Looking down at my bike computer I was amazed to see that we had covered just shy of 10 miles already after only around half an hour!

Shortly afterwards the group got considerably larger as another peloton of riders took their place at the head of the group. Heading out through Boat of Garten the group got completely blown to pieces with the combination of a road crossing and a choke point round a tight corner where roadworks had closed one side of the road quickly followed by a small climb. I lost the group by virtue of hanging on the back so I ended up heading through the most exposed part of the course, Nethybridge through Sliemore towards the 'other' main climb at the halfway point. This was also the point where the 50mile route split apart from the 100mile so suddenly the road ahead was looking very empty!

My strength is definitely not on the descents so the few riders that I had made time up on during the climb very quickly dropped me on the way down through Lynmore to Speybridge. Shortly after we got back onto the road back to Nethy Bridge I made it up to the back of a couple of girls who were heading along at a good pace. I have to say I owe so much of my finishing time to those girls, being able to draft with them saved my so much energy and really helped keep my pace up. I feel slightly for not taking more of a turn on the front but I did take a few pulls when I could. Part of my problem was that while I could keep pace when I was in the draft I was just not quite strong enough to keep up quite the same pace when I was leading.

The one thing I really noticed going through the forrest sections of the as just how much drag you get on the rougher surfaced sections of road. The simplest thing as unsealed tarmac really made a huge difference to the amount of effort you had to put in in order to keep up a pace compared to a fully sealed main road surface.

Coming out of the forest yet another group surged past us but didn't get too far up the road so we managed to bridge up to them and formed another peloton of around a dozen or so riders. I have to admit that through the second part of the race I did start to wonder if I might be on for a decent finishing position since I'd seen so few other riders on the way back towards the Cairngorms. I had started relatively towards the start of all the riders in the morning and I just couldn't remember seeing that many riders go past me! I tried to keep such thoughts out of my head as much as I could as I was only too aware of blowing up before the final climb.

Approaching that final climb, billed as Scotland's Alpe d'Huez, the group really bunched up and some of the riders who had been a good half a mile off were suddenly getting that much closer! Hitting the first ramp up I kept things steady just to see how the legs were feeling and how the other riders were taking it on. Soon I decided it was time to give it a go and I picked up my cadence, still trying to keep it as smooth as possible, not jumping out of the saddle to try and make a big break. I had passed the majority of the group going into the first switchback and tried to give a big dig into the flat section, passing another couple of other riders who were already deep into the red. Into the second switchback and I had cleared almost everyone I could still see through the cloud which had come right down again!

Pacing through the cloud I was absolutely on the limit and then my left calf started to cramp up yet again! I could see someone in the cloud just in the distance and decided that even with my leg giving out I was still gonna try and chase him down! Coming into the final turn I had made it past the last man only to be taken again and I was staring into the cloud, trying to remember if there was another switchback still to come! Suddenly the ski centre came into view over the top of the cloud and I made one last final push, making past the last man and attempting to sprint to the line. In reality I was probably rolling along at a quite sedate pace despite being out of the saddle trying to emulate a Cavendish style sprint finish!

All in all I finished up in 36th place, just inside the top third of the field and about 25minutes off the winning time, which I'm really pleased with. Once again I have to give a big thanks to everyone who I took a draft from through the ride, I couldn't have done it without you! I reckon that with a bit more training in my legs (the marathon training has a lot to answer for!) I could maybe try and push into the top 10 overall, maybe next year!

Cairngorm Classic 50 '09 Share your bike routes @ Bikely.com

It's refreshing to know that even in the midst of an apparent recession and with so many people facing financial uncertainty that there is still such a thing as the kindness and charity of strangers.

During the week I had an email from Justgiving announcing that Ian Frame had made a donation to the challenge. It turns out that this Ian Frame found the Justgiving page and decided that, as he shared the same name as my uncle, he would make a donation because it was a worthy cause.

So if you're reading this Ian Frame, thank you so much for the donation!

In related news, I've now broken the £200 mark in donations so huge thanks go out again to everyone who's supporting the challenge so far this year! And remember, if you still want to donate, there's plenty of time left, I'm keeping on going all season long!

Well, number 5 of the season is up, a nice 50miles through the Cairngorms in what I hope will be some pretty nice weather - I'm getting fed up of wet bike events!

I had originally been planning on entering the 100mile route but I've just not had enough time on the bike recently to be able to get round the full distance. The only bike time I've really had recently have been the Bealach and the Etape Caledonia, any other training time I might have had was being devoted to getting ready for the marathon the other weekend.

After a slightly lackluster performance at the Etape Caledonia I'm hoping for a better performance this weekend, I'm certainly gonna be going all out for it given it's the shorter route. Both routes finish up with a pretty sharp climb back up to the Cairngorm ski centre which I'm planning on giving it a big push on, providing my legs are still feeling up to it!

Looking back to the start of the season, just 7 short weeks ago, with the Edinburgh 10km it's crazy to think I'm already onto a 5th event! As quick as the time has passed that first race of the season seems like an age ago.