LEJOG IN 5 DAYS

Go for it guys by the time
Go for it guys by the time you get to day 3 u will just want to eat anything thats in front of u, I know I did. I almost ate the bus I was so starving. Just eat constantly as u will never eat enough. As mentioned High5 4:1 is excellent stuff and just experiment with eating on the move and diff gels and bars etc until u find whats right for u 🙂

I did the Race Against Time
I did the Race Against Time two years ago, in six days. It was reduced from five but I wouldn’t let that put you off. A five-day Lejog is a tall order but it’s by no means impossible – although you’ll need to be lucky with injuries, mechanicals, weather etc.

If you want detailed thoughts it might be best to swap them off the forum if you’d like to email me at mcrthomas [at] gmail [dot] com, but in a nutshell, these would be my top tips:

1). Do lots of training! Bit late for that one now I suppose, but I was lucky enough to have loads of time to build up my fitness before the event and it made a massive difference. I loved virtually every minute of the experience but a few of my fellow riders *really* struggled. In fact one of them didn’t finish at all and I know he was beyond gutted about it.

2). Buy the best shorts you can afford. We all had some pretty serious undercarriage pain issues but the people with Assos and the like were a *lot* better off than the cheap ‘n’ cheerful brigade. Same goes for your other contact points: make sure your shoes fit perfectly (I lost the feeling in one of my toes for over a year after the ride) and use gloves with decent gel padding (my Enduras were pretty good – bit too padded for general use but I really felt the benefit on some of the rougher roads by the time we got to Scotland).

3). Get a support vehicle if you can. You will want to eat a truly astonishing amount of food (we figured we were getting through 9000 calories a day and were all still permanently hungry) and you and your toilet really don’t want all that to come from energy bars/gels. We had a transit full of cake, sarnies, flapjacks, bananas etc etc, not to mention gallons of water, energy drinks, recovery drinks (don’t forget these!) and tea/coffee. We also had pre-arranged meal & rest breaks at places where our superstar support team had gone ahead and cooked for us. Brilliant if you can set it up. The other thing about the support vehicle is that it’ll cut down the time you spend fixing punctures/mechanicals etc. And you want to spend as little time as possible doing that (which reminds me, choose your tyres carefully – I had no punctures at all with my Vittoria Pave Evo CGs but others with lighter, faster tyres had loads, which was a massive pain in the arse, frankly).

4). Do deals. I got a reasonable discount with Mule Bars cos I bought so many (for most of the riders) but I reckon you could do even better with more time & effort. You haven’t said whether you’re raising any money for charity on this ride but you’ll have more leverage with suppliers if you are.

There’s far too much information about my ride on my road.cc blog if you can be arsed. But if there’s anything in particular you want to ask, do feel free to email me.

I’m so envious! I wish I was doing it again. Good luck!

The Race Against Time, a
The Race Against Time, a charity ride, used to do it in five days. I think they’ve gone to six now, as it was so difficult.

http://www.theraceagainsttime.com/slideshow.php

Why not contact them, I’m sure they’ll have some advice.