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The girodilento festive family 250km


Yes, it’s that time of year again – we’re coming up to the Christmas period and Strava announce the pretty much annual Festive 500.

In theory it’s a great idea – I’d love to have a crack at riding 500km between 24th of December and the 31st, I really would.

But actually there is no way I can. I’m married, I have young kids, family commitments and it’s my wife’s birthday all in that 7 day period. I love my wife and kids and Christmas is one of the best times of the year to hang out and spend quality time with them. I’d like to stay happily married into 2013 if I can and frankly trying to ride 500km between Christmas Eve and New Years Eve could put that into serious jeopardy.

So here’s my plan, I reckon with some luck and some commitment, I might, just might – I’m not super confident get to 250km and you know what? That would be an Awesome result. Frankly I’d be happy with 150km or even 200km but I’ll put up 250km as a stretch goal.

So with all of my commitments above but without allowing for the weather – I’m going to have a go at the inaugural girodilento festive family 250.

If you’d like to have a go to, please do, the more the merrier seriously. To “enter” just leave a comment with how many km you think you could manage: 150, 200 or 250 and state how many kids you’ve got and the age range (the more & younger kids you have the more impressive your mileage would be – assuming you’re not working on a divorce) and please state if there are any immediate family birthdays within the period too. Consider it the family road cycling equivalent to a golf handicap (remember those? Me either ;-))

Thanks to @accidentobizaro who first tweeted the hastag #girodilento250 – If you use @strava please feel free to tweet any qualifying ride between December 24th and 31st tagged with #girodilento250 and I’ll keep track of the tweets.

I’ve also created a Strava club for anybody who’d like to use it to record their rides. You can join us here: http://app.strava.com/clubs/girodilento-cycling If you don’t have a Strava account, a basic one is free as are their iPhone and Android apps to record your mileage (if you don’t have a Garmin).

They’ll be no prizes (most probably) but you will have the respect of myself, readers of this blog (and our Facebook page) as someone who tried hard to find a balance between family life and cycling. You’ll have our admiration and hopefully your family will still love you (I can’t guarantee that though).

Thanks for reading – good luck and please join in – it’ll be fun ….. Unless it snows.