This is “5am” serious now!

What started as a small challenge, a bit of fun and to raise money for charity is now fastly becoming an obsession. This is how serious things are. I got up at 5.15am this morning chomping at the bit to start my festive 500 challenge (which starts today).

Clumsily getting ready in pitch black and stumbling bleary eyed downstairs to kit up I noshed one Weetabix and downed a glass of water before heading out in to the still of the night!!

Using my new lights for the first time I switched them to flicker and off I headed towards a long road I know well. Only being able to see about 9 feet in front of me with the light beam was proving a real problem at times in the pitch black as there were huge puddles that had formed and broken tree branches sitting in the middle of the road from last nights huge storm so this felt like an assault course at times.

After about 8 miles I was in the deepest of Hertfordshire countryside in the pitch black with the creepy lonely country roads enveloping me. Very few cars came past to give me sparing light and made for an all new cycling experience with crucial senses being taken away from me.Like a wet mole I completed a 35km ride and got back to the house at 7am. On returning to the house it was still dark and very odd that I had one and half hours exercise but still the sun had not come up.

It is an amazing feeling to be able to that amount of exercise, get to work for 9am and then have a bacon sarnie to set you up for the day. I feel full of life and energy and this is a great start to the challenge.

FESTIVE 500 update – First ride complete. 35km so far and 6% of the total target completed. http://www.strava.com/challenges/festive-500-2013