So for the last six months I've been mostly on my bike. Or stretching. Or yawning and complaining about how tired I am. You see I've been training for the Marmotte, which is a fairly chunky challenge even for a decent cyclist - and for a slightly chubby recreational cyclist who'd only once done 100 miles and never climbed anything more than 2500m in a day, it's a serious, daunting, OH MY GOD WHAT HAVE I SIGNED UP FOR? kind of challenge.

So what is the Marmotte (other than a cute Alpine animal?) It's a sportive of 190km (118 miles) with 5000m of climbing.

Say it really quickly and it doesn't sound so bad does it? Hmmmm. Well I'm scared. Really scared. Whilst I'm a lot fitter than I was (smug moment at the doctor when she said I had a very low pulse), and have managed to lose some of the lard, I'm still slow. And so it's going to take me a LONG time. Probably ten hours or so. So if anyone has any good musical suggestions, do please send them my way. Even though I'm a huge fan of Dolly, I suspect even she might wane on the third repeat.

Livvy