History Up To Now

I started  off cycling in Jan 2008 on an old mountain bike, a Carrera Vulcan (Halfords special). I'd go for a 12 mile ride 3 times a week down the East Lancs cycle path.
They say the hardest part of any workout is getting out the front door but i found the first month or so really difficult. I'd come back from riding those 12 miles with spaghetti legs, light headed, soaked with sweat and ready for bed. What kept me going though was that i could feel myself getting fitter and faster week by week.
2 Months later and i had bought a shiny new Trek 1.9 road bike, joined a cycling club and was regularly riding over 150 miles per week. I had also lost around 21lbs in weight and was feeling very fit.
2008 saw me covering 4500 miles. I rode the Manchester to Blackpool 60 miles in just over 3 hours with an average speed of 18.6 mph. I rode the Rainford 10 mile Time Trial in 26.08 mins, an average speed of 22.9 mph. The next year 2009 was a turbulent year in my home life and saw my free time schedule shaken up and cycling was not ranking high on my list of important things to do. As a result I only covered 2500 miles and in 2010 that figure dropped again to 1200 miles.
At the begining of September 2010 I got a shock as to how much of my fitness I had lost. I rode out with a cycling club to Knott End, about 50 miles away. Our average speed on arriving at the cafe was 18.5 and I knew I was going to be in trouble on the way back. My legs were weak and I had no energy. We headed off for home again at the same breakneck pace and I couldn't keep up at all. I kept falling further and further behind. Riders from the main group kept dropping back to see if I was ok. I kept telling them to go on without me as i would get myself to Preston then catch a train home. Eventually thats what they did. That was on the Tuesday. On the following Saturday I managed the Manchester 100 ride but at a much slower pace averaging 15.5 mph. My short rides up the East lancs cycle path were feeling like hard work again also. So 2011 became my year of getting fit again.
I have an app on my android phone called CardioTrainer that tracks my speed, route, caories burned etc then posts the workout to my Facebook profile. My profile was getting a bit single themed and cycling stats became my status, so i created this blog to post my cycling year to instead.