What could a typical day on LEJOG look like?

Here’s the lowdown:

• 9.7 times the distance of Ride London 100
• 4.3 times the ascent of the average Etape Du Tour
• 3.0 times the duration of London to Paris
• 969 Miles
• 9 days
• 23 counties
• 3 countries
• 17,068 meters ascent
• 750 riders

What will a typical day look like?

As I understand it, each day I'll be waking up at 5am, packing my kit up into my bag and (hopefully in the dry...) going for breakfast, picking up clean laundry en route. I'll then be collecting my bike from the storage area where it's marked with my rider number and going to the start for about 7am.

The tent and sleeping mat which are provided at the event get packed away and loaded onto a van with my overnight bag and driven to the next overnight destination where they get set up for my arrival. 

There's then the small matter of 110 miles a day to cover, 130 on day seven. I might do 15 mph on a one off event such as a Sportive so with some brief food breaks I'd be looking at about 8.5 hours for 110 miles. This is different though. I need to pace myself here as it's the same for 9 days on the trot. Probably 11 or 12 mph is more realistic, so something more like 10 or 11 hours a day. That means if I leave at 7am I'll be getting in at 5 or 6pm. Bedtime is at 9pm. On a bad day it could even be 12 hours.

On each day stage there are two feeding stations and I've heard there are pork pies on them so that will do me if it's true.

On arrival in camp at the end of the day there seems like a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it! There are snacks to eat straight away, followed by booking a massage slot, storing the bike or handing it to Halfords to fix, putting the phone on charge and then heading off for a shower via the tent. The 'rule' is 4 minutes for a shower - try it, it's not long!

After the shower it's back to the 'gormet' food tent for tea via the drying room for wet gear then off for a massage (one every two days), drop off the laundry, attend the rider briefing for the next day then go to bed. Hopefully I won't have to join the queue for the first aid tent as apparently a small number of riders with nasty sores had to last year. Seems like a lot to get through before 9pm.

I like this from the Ride Across Britain site describing sleeping at John O'Groats from day 1 in 2013:

"With the sky remaining light throughout the night, a brisk breeze ruffling the tents and the inevitable nerves it is usually a pretty sleepless night, but by Day 3 it is amazing how they all seem to sleep through the nocturnal orchestra that accompanies 700 tired, well fed riders."