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Back in January, one Sunday morning we decided to go for a bike ride. 

We set off to Shoreham to ride up alongside the River Adur, and along the Downs Link.

Neither of us were in very good shape, we got a puncture within the first mile, got freezing cold and soaking wet, I fell off (a lot!) and we barely managed 20 miles.

For some reason, the following Sunday we found ourselves in the van heading back south to Shoreham.

So you are probably thinking that we've had 9 months to prepare for this, well not quite - in February, Paul managed to rupture his bicep tendon and spent the next four months without the use of his arm!

At the start of June, realising that we were now both in a worse  shape than we were back in January, we decided to start excersing again. Paul was still looking like a fat Robocop!! with his arm in a brace and couldn't ride a bike one handed, so we went walking.

Walking was quite boring, but eventually Paul's arm was healed enough to start some gentle cycling, nothing too 'off road' to start off with though.

The rides started to get longer, and bumpier. I saw an advert for the London to Brighton Off Road Bike Ride, I sent it to Paul as a joke - that night he signed us both up for it!

I've done long rides before, but they're always on nice smooth roads, Paul had only rode sections of the Downs Link, I don't think either of us really knew what we were letting ourselves in for.

This was now getting serious, new bikes were ordered, a Garmin GPS had to be used to stop us from keep getting lost in the woods, and every ride became a training ride (but I still fell off a lot!)

We are now two weeks away from the ride, and (we hope) we are ready for it, we have practiced on pretty much the whole route, and managed to get up most of the hills.

We have a combined weight loss of over 6 stone since starting training and Paul's blood pressure has been reduced (doctors pleased). We have both benefited greatly from this ride already, so would like to ask you to help us help the British Heart Foundation to fund the crucial life saving research into improving the treatment, diagnosis and the prevention of heart and circulatory disease.

If you would like to sponsor us for the ride then donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure.

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