As Most of You Probably Know Already, Today, 6 of Us Head to Cork to Be Ready to Set Off

As most of you probably know already, today, 6 of us head to Cork to be ready to set off early tomorrow morning to attempt to cycle from Mizen Head in Cork to Malin Head in Donegal in 3 days (all going well).

We are doing the cycle for the charity called the "Donegal Cancer Bus", a really worthy cause and we would appreciate any donations possible through the link below. The bus runs from Donegal to Galway return several days a week for Donegal based cancer patients who are being treated in Galway and are unable to drive or have anyone drive them. It is mostly the older generation that currently use its services and due to the nature of the prostate cancer treatment, these patients especially get the most benefit out of the bus compared to public buses due to the way this type of cancer is treated.

With the changes in cancer services in Ireland to a more specialised centres approach, a lot of patients have to travel for their treatment and this bus is a fully charity funded service for the people who need it.

One of the six of us doing the cycle was diagnosed with and treated for cancer successfully this time last year so this naturally brings a cancer charity to the fore for us.

Any donations received will go straight to the charity as we will are paying for everything ourselves (accommodation etc) and the diesel for the support van was sponsored.

http://www.idonate.ie/mobile/fundraiser/29288_donegal--boys-mizen-to-malin-22-24-may-2014-s-fundraising-page.html

In terms of the cycle itself, we are aiming for Limerick on the first night (205km's), Sligo on the second night (220km's) and finish in Malin on Saturday (185km's).

Day 1 and Day 3 have a lot of hills with the midland Day 2 naturally slightly flatter. Why we don’t do this in the normal Mizen to Malin idea of 5 or 6 days is beyond me but the plans are made now for the 3 days so we will have to roll with it (a better challenge was the reason why one of the lads wanted 3 days when we decided we would do this back in November!!).

The change in direction of the wind today, for the next week, to a strong north headwind is probably the worst luck we could get but such is life.... Nothing like making a good challenge harder.

We were training for an average of 25km's per hour but the wind issue now will probably bring this down a lot. With the current predicted strength and direction of the wind, anything under 10 hours a day in the saddle will now be good. In terms of calorie consumption equivalent, we are probably talking about the same as running 4 and ½ marathons over 3 days but hopefully with a lot less impact on the body. That is the one /the only positive; I can eat a good few sweets over the next days :)

If we have the energy, we will post some updates on our Facebook page below as to how we are getting on.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mizen-Head-To-Malin-Head-May-2014/1398845843724022