LEJOG Day 12 - Worcester to Bridgnorth

Severn Steam Train

A small canal

Farming fields

Who thought this was okay for a bike path?!! 

Loads of sheep today

Sunny day views

River Severn continues

The Wyre Forest climb

Hills on the way up

And hills on the way down

Not another one of these!!!

Rail trails 

Bridge stop

A day of two halves - undulations and hills

Snack time!

River Severn, which we’ve been following for 125 miles

In the West Midlands now and looks like the route for today is 45 miles and the hills are back.  Not Cornwall hills, but looks like an up and down day.  We think we’re getting stronger, will be interesting today to see if that’s true.  We’re going to Bridgnorth in Shropshire today.

Although LEJOG was on Steve’s Bucket List, the physical aspect is on both our lists - investing in our physical future perhaps?  There are a lot of things we want to be able to do in this retirement and as we age and it looks like we’re going to have to train for it.  One of my favourite longevity doctors, Peter Attia, describes it as doing more now to combat the natural decline of aging, where you lose about 10% of your physical capability per decade from 40 onwards.  So if you can pedal 40 miles at 60 and you want to be able to do the same at 80, you have to really be able to pedal around 50 or more miles at 60.  Doing more now so we can hit our target activities in the coming years.

There are two things that go along with that - front end loading the physical aspects of retirement and making a list of the physical things that, if we have anything to do about it, we’ll be able to do as we get older.

About 5 years ago, we made a list of all the things we’d like to do in retirement.  All the advice is to cost that out so you’ll have enough money, which we did.  But then we mapped out the activities by retirement decade - what could we do physically at 79, 80, 90?  The physical things all had to be planned for and done in the first decade or two of retirement to have the best chance of getting them done - LEJOG had to be done in our 60s or we probably wouldn’t be able to do it later on.  Hiking the Dalesway needs to be done sooner than later, etc.

Beyond the big things list, there are the day to day things that I hadn’t really thought about until reading Attia’s book ‘Outlive’.  If I’m 80 or 90 🤞, what do I want to be able to do?  Because it seems you have to train for that too.  Lifting a (great) grandbaby, carrying groceries, climbing stairs, getting up off the floor, etc.

And to realise how challenging that is, we’ve now done 10 days of pedalling and the legs are still sore.

These are the things we ponder as we’re pedalling for miles and miles.

Back to the tour!  Getting in and out of towns is slow, but not on busy roads at all.  The route usually runs us through parks and along cycle paths when entering or leaving towns.  It will take up to an hour to get in or out, but it’s all on non-busy roads.

It was a hilly day today and close to the best one so far!  Mostly good cycleways, single lane roads and no traffic.  A lot of today was on rail trails, nicely graveled, smooth and running along high over valleys.  It was fun hearing the Severn Steam Train in the distance and then seeing it up close.  Went through the Wyre forest and butterfly preserve, both lovely.  

After a bit of narrow, slippy trail, we made it to Bridgnorth which has a lower and upper town.  We’re staying at the Parlor Hotel in the low town, close to the river and then climbed up into the high town for dinner at the Castle Pub for Friday Night is Steak Night.

Tired, but good 

Bridgnorth Low Town clock tower

The steps down to the low town

More steps

Friday night is steak night

Big steak night

The Castle Pub

A pot of tea!

So many great views!