Now we're getting somewhere!!

It's getting light earlier now, so we set off sharper today. Mad Paul still insists on cycling from his house to mine, so he ends up doing an extra 14 miles or so on me. I'd like to say he needs the extra training, but in fact the reverse is true; I'm sure I used to be fitter than he did. When did that happen? :-)

Anyhow, we set off at 8am with promises from the weathermen of rainshowers later in the morning. It seems that whatever the weathermen say is pretty much the most likely thing not to happen. So it was today. The rain never materialised, although it was a bit blustery. Largely the same route as last weekend via Haslemere, but with an extra 10 miles added at the southern end. 55 miles!!!!! Feeling good now. 50 miles was a mental objective for me. Better think of another one now. And that blummin hill at Hindhead felt a lot better today.

Ciaran, having told Simon we were starting at 8, woke up at 8 for an 8:30 start. So we set off without him and he promised to catch us up. We took a slight detour 8 miles in at Cranleigh, and it must have been at that point that Ciaran caught up and overtook us. I'm obviously not taking any pleasure thinking of him pushing himself for 50 miles trying to catch us up, but he got home about 30 minutes before we did!!!

Going for another ride tommorrow morning. Will be interesting to see how my bum feels...

Why do I still feel guilty?

Yesterday I had good intentions. I had signed up for a 90 minute spin session at the gym, but it was full. I therefore decided to do some work on the turbo.

However, when I got home Jules & I realised we had a few bits to do on the website, and some preparation for a meeting with CHASE about the ride today.

I therefore convinced myself that it made sense to have a night off training (after all I had done 40 miles the day before....my second longest bike ride ever....). I felt awful.

So today when I got home it was straight on the turbo trainer for an hour. It was a good session, and I was pleased with my performance, but I still cant beat off the guilt for not doing anything yesterday!

40 miler!

Ciarán, Simon and I set out for a longer ride this morning. The weather was better than it was supposed to be according to the weathermen, but nonetheless quite blustery which made the going a bit tough at times.

We set out in a similar direction to my 35 mile route, but continued on into Bramley, then Chiddingfold, Haslemere, Hindhead then up to the Hogs Back back to Guildford. It was a good ride, with a particularly horrible hill out of Hindhead right on through Haslemere. According to my Garmin, we went from 200 ft to 850 ft. I need to work on my ascents - but I'm definitely getting better the more I do. The best thing was coming down the hill the other side - we hit 35 mph at one point.

I'm still not quite used to the distance you can achieve on a road-bike. I can't believe I cycled to Haslemere today....

The 2nd week

Although I was back at work on 2-Jan, last week was my first full week back since Fraser died. I'm realising that the trick to this challenge is going to be finding the time to get the miles in. Sunday morning was easy enough. Simon joined Paul and I on our 35 mile route via Dorking. I felt great after that ride - much stronger than on New Years day. Could it possibly be that this training is paying off already?

I had a work function on Thursday night, and planned to keep Friday clear, so I turbo-trained on Monday and Wednesday with a break on Tuesday. Because I had a shortened turbo-training session on Wednesday due to working late, I also went out for a short 15 mile ride on Saturday morning.

This brought my weekly total to 72 miles (including the turbo). Thats 4 miles further than the first week which is good, but not as good as I had hoped. Having said that, my average speed is up 1/2 mph and my average cadence is up 5.

Bonking with Paul

Paul and I set off for a ride of 85 miles. The weather was good; it was mild and dry, although it was a bit windy.

We planned to stop after 30 and 60 miles to have a quick rest and a snack.

The ride started well. I took Paul over a new hill I found between East Horsley and Shere. Its a great hill - nice gradual incline on a quiet road. It starts around 300 ft and climbs to about 700 ft over about 2.5 miles and then drops to just over 200ft and back up to nearly 500 ft over the next 3.5 miles. Then there is a fantastic 10 mile downhill all the way to Abinger Hammer.

After about 30 miles, on the road between Billingshurst & Petworth, we stopped for a snack & a rest. I had run out of energy bars, so had brought some malt-loaf for a change. Somehow I had got a drawing pin in my front tyre, so we wasted some time changing the tube & re-inflating the tyre.

Somewhat behind time, we set off again feeling good. As we approached Petworth I started to struggle a bit and my legs felt heavy and by the time we got to Fernhurst I had to stop. It was really strange, I was just exhausted, and couldn't even stand up. I wondered if I was short of energy, and Paul gave me one of his energy bars. After a short break we set off again, but I still could not seem to get much speed up, and for the next 10 miles our average speed dropped off.

By this time, due to the wasted time on the puncture, and the lack of pace, we were getting seriously late - Paul had to be home by 1:30. We'd arrived at Liss, so we stopped quickly again to phone home & warn the girls we were likely to be late. I was very tempted to ask Jules to come and pick me up, because I was a bit worried about pushing myself too hard. However, when I spoke to her she didn't sound very well, so I decided to push on.

When we set off again, I started to feel much better, and by the time we got to Alton after another 10 miles, we were back on good pace. It was 12:30, and we still had over 20 miles to go to Guildford - looked like Paul would be really late. However, once we were on the A31, we suddenly had the wind behind us on a nice flat bit of road. We decided to try out the "big cogs", and managed to get to Guildford inside an hour - it felt fantastic to be racing along at over 20 miles an hour for that length of time!!!

On arriving home, and describing to Ciaran what had happened, he reckoned I had "bonked". This is when your body has used up all its stores of glycogen, and you become extremely debilitated (click on it for more details!!!).

So - a bit of a struggle, but my longest ride yet. 88 miles. :-)

I now have a turbo...

I was planning to go to the gym tonight to do a few more miles. On my way to the gym, I passed a bike shop, and popped in and bought a turbo trainer so I could do my training at home.

Great idea, except it took me a little while to put it together, so I ended up training til 21:30, and eating after that. Still, I managed to do the equivalent of 13 miles bringing my total to 68 miles for my first week of training. Not bad.

I had treated myself to a Garmin Edge 305 GPS thingy, which you attach to your bike so it can monitor a whole bunch of stuff you might be interested in (including cadence which I've discussed in previous postings). It makes tracking your progress really easy, with the added benefit of showing you where you went on a map in case you want to do a route again (or avoid one...).

35 miler - Happy New Year!!

I can't quite believe I'm out on my bike again, but what a great way to start the New Year!!

Paul & I decide to go out on a slightly longer ride, but less hilly, so we can a) get some more miles under our belt and b) focus on getting our cadence up.

We're aiming to do 25 miles, but we miss a turn and end up doing 35. This is another difference with the road bike compared to the mountain bike - you can really cover some distance. We cycled from Guildford to Dorking (via Cranleigh) - it felt great! It would have been a significant drive, and we did it by pedal power!!

It was a miserable day however, and I have to confess I felt like giving up, getting a hot drink & booking a taxi when we unexpectantly ended up in Dorking. Fraser popped into my head to keep me going though, and when I arrived home I felt fantastic.