T minus 2 weeks — Three Men and a Tent

OMG!!! How can it be only two weeks to go….what have I been doing with my time? The last time I “blogged” it was very much the plan (genuinely!) that I would update you at least once a week on what we were up to ….turns out massive fail on my part….sorry will (try) to do better (🤞)

Yes, so in exactly two weeks time we head off to AFRICA (!!!!!!) carrying just the bare necessity’s (the simple bare necessities, forget about your worries etc etc) and using our tiny, ickle pale, aged, white hairy pipe cleaner legs (certainly in my case) to cycle all the way…I know, right….have we lost our minds? (Yes…..it’s rhetorical!) In fact as I am typing this it is almost exactly to the minute (midday, 30 April if you are interested) in two weeks time that we will be throwing our symbolic pennies in the fountains at Trafalgar Square (if you are new to this TMAAT thing don’t worry….it’s just our “symbolic / spiritual / affectation” thing) and heading off on our ridiculously epic 1400 mile trip through all of France, all of Spain and a titchy, tiny, weeny bit of Morroco. Insane!!!

“So what have you been up to?” no one asked ….well I am going to tell you anyway.

I think I was doing ok training wise until mid March…I had lost a bit of weight (not enough) I was on the bike pretty much everyday and getting my saddle time up and then I fell foul of the dreaded Covid! I was lucky in that I wasn’t seriously ill but it was enough to keep off my bike or doing any kind of exercise for nearly three weeks. A little known side effect of Covid is also that you have to eat all the pies which I of course duly did!

I was just about recovered when a long planned few days in Mallorca came around (I know….I’m so jetset!) pretending I was a professional cyclist on a training weekend with my friend Steve (yes I do have more than one friend!). Neither of us were in all honesty feeling 100% but we still had the most amazing time. Highlight of the weekend was cycling up and down and then up and down again the famous Sa Calobra……it was amazeballs!!!

Despite my attempts to make like a professional cyclist Marc has, as far as I can tell, taken the whole “training” thing to the next level. Whenever I speak to him or see him he is either a/ on his way to the gym b/ at the gym or c/ on his way back from the gym!! Not only that (and god I hate myself for saying this!!) he is looking way thinner and borderline “hench”…..quite frankly it’s more than a little worrying and just ever so slightly intimidating. I am currently spending most days struggling to get out of my, admittedly very comfy, armchair in front of the television without feeling (ok imagining) aches and pains in every bit of me whilst meanwhile Marc is in a pool of his own sweat doing 40 “reps” of some masochistic crunch thing ….it’s not good.

So whilst I have been feeling a bit sorry for myself and flexing my OCD itch by having a practice pack (yes two weeks in advance) Marc, in the very few minutes he has each day between his visits to the gym, has managed to fit in time for the addition of some new body art….and yes, before you ask, it is real!

All joking aside Marc’s insane level of commitment to TMAAT is a measure of just how much our adventures really mean to us. I know to many of you it probably seems like it’s just a bit of a hoot or a holiday as we amble from town to town across Europe (and soon Africa!) having a rare old time as we go. We do of course have fun but it really is a serious, proper, hard, hard (really hard!) challenge and getting it done is a long long way from how easy it may look…..which is why (goddamn I’m good) it’s so important that if you are reading this you please, please, please donate as much as you can (see below) and you tell everyone you know about TMAAT and the middle aged idiots who think they can ride their bikes to Africa!!!