Hi Gretchen

Sounds like an incredible trip! What a fantastic challenge to take part in.

I agree with Pedalfaster – as soon as you possibly can, get out on the road. Don’t know what the climate is like where you are but as long as it’s safe, ie no ice, then get riding, even if it might mean braving the wind and rain.

Cross training is good for keeping your overall fitness up and the home-trainer in front of the TV is also useful, but its true - the more time you can spend in the saddle the better, as it’ll develop your cycling specific muscles.

Very glad to hear you’ve got yourself a trainer – good for motivation etc and this may be a silly question , but is he/she a cyclist or someone whose worked with cyclists before, because if they have this will be a great advantage to you, as you can maximise your training by making it cycling specific.

I guess stamina is also going to be a key thing in a ride of that distance – even though the distances might not be massive each day they’ll soon add up over the course of a week, so it might be worthwhile experimenting.

If you can fit it into your week try doing a good long ride 3 or 4 days in a row to see how you feel. Was the pace right for you or did you go off too fast on the first day? What sort of energy food worked the best out on the road and what sort of food helped you recover the best when you got home?

Also, get as much info about the route as you possibly can .That way you shouldn’t have too many nasty surprises, and it also means you can also look forward to the best bits.

Good luck and keep up posted…