The plan yesterday had been to leave around the same time as we will be leaving on the ride itself, and to do approx half-distance by lunchtime. Hence we were very pleased to do 111 miles and still be back in time for lunch.
After the bad start yesterday, I was determined to get out on the bike again. Having spoken to Ciaran and Paul, I had a 6am start option with Ciaran for a "quick fifty" (as he described it) or an 11am start with Paul for a similar distance.
I opted for the early start so Jules & I could have the rest of the day enjoying the fastastic weather we're having.
Ciarans route is very similar to the 50 we did last Sunday afternoon except it goes slightly north of Bentley and on up to Crondall, then back through Farnham to the A31 and along the Hogs back home.
Again we set out at a good pace. I was feeling so much better today (thank goodness!). I was zipping up the hills on the long slog from Milford to Haslemere through Grayswood, and my heart rate stayed nice in the 160s.
Between Liphook & Bentley we were cycling into a headwind which slowed us down a bit, and we made our first stop just north of Bentley. The scenery around there is just wonderful, and today I was in more of a mood to enjoy it!
We got home after 2:55 in the saddle, and only then did I realise why Ciaran's "quick fifty" is so quick: it's only 47 miles long!!!
Still; a good time for a hilly route & into the wind for a good portion. I think I deserve the rest of the day off!!
Showing posts with label Farnham. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Farnham. Show all posts
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Saturday, June 7, 2008
No more alcohol
On Thursday night we had a work function, and I decided it would be nice to have a few beers. BIG MISTAKE! I didn't have loads of beer; probably 4 pints of Guinness. I got home in relatively good time, slept well, and didn't feel too bad the next day. Little did I know I was going to regret drinking that much on my next ride.
During the day on Friday I emailed Ciaran, Simon & Paul to see what they had planned for this weekend. Turned out Simon was planning to cycle to the Cotswolds, so the rest of us decided to join him for the first 50 miles or so, then turn back.
We set off at 6am, but the forecast was good, so I only had a single layer on. It was quite cold to start with, and I was pleased that we began the route with a climb up the Farnham road out of Guildford onto the Hogs back. Once on the Hogs back, we set off at a cracking pace and before long we were in Farnham. I'd noticed it being a bit hard work along the Hogs back, but put it down to the speed we were going which was much faster than normal. However, as we climbed up the past Hale and towards Odiham, I noticed my heart was pounding away much faster than normal. I was taking it fairly easy on the hills (because of the heart rate), but still my heart was going at 185. Then, even worse, at the top, where my heart rate usually quickly recovers to 130-140 or so, it stayed at 160.
This was fine for a little while, but after a few more hills I was exhausted. We were still managing a fairly good pace, and north of Odiham we went through Basingstoke, Newbury and on up to Wantage. By this point we'd been going pretty much non-stop for 3.5 hours and had just under 60 miles under our belt.
For the last 10-15 miles of this, I had not been enjoying it at all. The scenery was fantastic, the weather was good, the roads were quiet, but I felt rubbish.
When we stopped, I said I needed a bit of a rest. I was even thinking of just getting on the train home.
After 15 minutes or so, a short snack, a good drink and a little lie down, I made myself set off again. Ciaran, Paul & I setting of in one direction and Simon the other.
From where we stopped the road was a little undulating, but generally down hill for a few miles. I found myself at the front, and decided to try and set a good pace. Suddenly Fraser came into my mind (as he has done on a couple of times when I've felt low during training), and I had a little cry.
Next time we came to an uphill, I felt much better. My heart was more normal (160-170), and recovered quickly afterwards. So I much more enjoyed the route back through Reading, Wokingham & Bracknell. By the time we got home, we'd done 111 miles in 6.5 hours cycling which we were quite pleased with. The whole ride took a little longer than we planned due to the longish stop at Wantage, but I was so glad I pushed myself to do the rest of the ride.
I can only think my body was still processing the alcohol or something, but lesson learnt! No more til after the ride.
During the day on Friday I emailed Ciaran, Simon & Paul to see what they had planned for this weekend. Turned out Simon was planning to cycle to the Cotswolds, so the rest of us decided to join him for the first 50 miles or so, then turn back.
We set off at 6am, but the forecast was good, so I only had a single layer on. It was quite cold to start with, and I was pleased that we began the route with a climb up the Farnham road out of Guildford onto the Hogs back. Once on the Hogs back, we set off at a cracking pace and before long we were in Farnham. I'd noticed it being a bit hard work along the Hogs back, but put it down to the speed we were going which was much faster than normal. However, as we climbed up the past Hale and towards Odiham, I noticed my heart was pounding away much faster than normal. I was taking it fairly easy on the hills (because of the heart rate), but still my heart was going at 185. Then, even worse, at the top, where my heart rate usually quickly recovers to 130-140 or so, it stayed at 160.
This was fine for a little while, but after a few more hills I was exhausted. We were still managing a fairly good pace, and north of Odiham we went through Basingstoke, Newbury and on up to Wantage. By this point we'd been going pretty much non-stop for 3.5 hours and had just under 60 miles under our belt.
For the last 10-15 miles of this, I had not been enjoying it at all. The scenery was fantastic, the weather was good, the roads were quiet, but I felt rubbish.
When we stopped, I said I needed a bit of a rest. I was even thinking of just getting on the train home.
After 15 minutes or so, a short snack, a good drink and a little lie down, I made myself set off again. Ciaran, Paul & I setting of in one direction and Simon the other.
From where we stopped the road was a little undulating, but generally down hill for a few miles. I found myself at the front, and decided to try and set a good pace. Suddenly Fraser came into my mind (as he has done on a couple of times when I've felt low during training), and I had a little cry.
Next time we came to an uphill, I felt much better. My heart was more normal (160-170), and recovered quickly afterwards. So I much more enjoyed the route back through Reading, Wokingham & Bracknell. By the time we got home, we'd done 111 miles in 6.5 hours cycling which we were quite pleased with. The whole ride took a little longer than we planned due to the longish stop at Wantage, but I was so glad I pushed myself to do the rest of the ride.
I can only think my body was still processing the alcohol or something, but lesson learnt! No more til after the ride.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Training ride 2 : Winchester
There was much discussion about this training ride. Rich had come up with a plan which meant John & Tim could start out with him and meet up with the Guildford lot and head towards Bath. Meanwhile Henry would set out from Bath, and we would all meet up somewhere along the A4. It all sounded rather complicated, but in true Rich style, perfectly doable.
However Marg & Dave from the support team were coming down to meet us after the ride, so Tim & John decided to start from Guildford. Also Ciaran and Paul both needed to be back by a particular time, so we selected a route down the A31 to Winchester and back which would give us a bank of around 80 miles, then those of us that had time could do another 20 mile loop near Guildford.
Rich and Henry were unable to join us, so the team of six set of at 7am for the ride south to Winchester.
I was quite nervous. My last long ride, I had 'bonked', I hadn't trained properly for a couple of weeks, and memories of the strong head-winds last time I did the A31 would not go out of my head.
We set off at a cracking pace (once we'd got up the hill to the Hoggs Back), and were sticking together much better as a team than on the last ride.
At Four Marks (30 miles in) we stopped for a snack & quick rest. We decided that going all the way to Winchester was going to make time a bit tight for those needing to get home, so we planned to turn back at Arlesford instead.
On the way back Ciaran (of all people) started to struggle a bit. I got the sense that the rest of us have been doing well on our training, and he had not anticipated how quickly we'd be able to go by now. In some sick selfish way, I think this gave the team a bit of a morale boost. Everyone has confidence that Ciaran will be able to do the big ride, so if we were doing better than him, then maybe we would be able to do it too!!!
When we got to back to Farnham, we stopped to discuss how to get the miles in. We'd done 45 miles already, and Ciaran needed to get home. We decided to set back off down to Arlesford again, and then do a 10 mile loop when we got back to Guildford.
This time, we decided to try "chain ganging". This is where you take it in turns to go at the front of the line, and stay there for about 30 seconds. Once you're done, you pull out & ease off, and the rest of the pack overtakes on the inside, where you rejoin the line at the back. Using this technique, we piled the miles on, and soon found ourselves back at Four Marks (at 60 miles) having another snack (although we did lose 20 minutes or so because Simon got a puncture).
By the time we'd got back to Farnham, we'd done about 80 miles, so we peeled off the A31 towards Ash, Worpleston, Old Woking and Send. We dropped Paul of at his house, and at Clandon we hit our 100 mile target.
After the final 5 miles, we got home to a fantastic lunch prepared by Jules, Marg & Dave; proper support team training too!
I was really pleased to have survived this ride. Especially as we had our highest average speed so far of nearly 17 miles an hour. Previously it had been nearer 15.5 mph, although there were no real hills on this ride to slow us down and we were able to use "the BIG cog" for much of the ride.
However Marg & Dave from the support team were coming down to meet us after the ride, so Tim & John decided to start from Guildford. Also Ciaran and Paul both needed to be back by a particular time, so we selected a route down the A31 to Winchester and back which would give us a bank of around 80 miles, then those of us that had time could do another 20 mile loop near Guildford.
Rich and Henry were unable to join us, so the team of six set of at 7am for the ride south to Winchester.
I was quite nervous. My last long ride, I had 'bonked', I hadn't trained properly for a couple of weeks, and memories of the strong head-winds last time I did the A31 would not go out of my head.
We set off at a cracking pace (once we'd got up the hill to the Hoggs Back), and were sticking together much better as a team than on the last ride.
At Four Marks (30 miles in) we stopped for a snack & quick rest. We decided that going all the way to Winchester was going to make time a bit tight for those needing to get home, so we planned to turn back at Arlesford instead.
On the way back Ciaran (of all people) started to struggle a bit. I got the sense that the rest of us have been doing well on our training, and he had not anticipated how quickly we'd be able to go by now. In some sick selfish way, I think this gave the team a bit of a morale boost. Everyone has confidence that Ciaran will be able to do the big ride, so if we were doing better than him, then maybe we would be able to do it too!!!
When we got to back to Farnham, we stopped to discuss how to get the miles in. We'd done 45 miles already, and Ciaran needed to get home. We decided to set back off down to Arlesford again, and then do a 10 mile loop when we got back to Guildford.
This time, we decided to try "chain ganging". This is where you take it in turns to go at the front of the line, and stay there for about 30 seconds. Once you're done, you pull out & ease off, and the rest of the pack overtakes on the inside, where you rejoin the line at the back. Using this technique, we piled the miles on, and soon found ourselves back at Four Marks (at 60 miles) having another snack (although we did lose 20 minutes or so because Simon got a puncture).
By the time we'd got back to Farnham, we'd done about 80 miles, so we peeled off the A31 towards Ash, Worpleston, Old Woking and Send. We dropped Paul of at his house, and at Clandon we hit our 100 mile target.
After the final 5 miles, we got home to a fantastic lunch prepared by Jules, Marg & Dave; proper support team training too!
I was really pleased to have survived this ride. Especially as we had our highest average speed so far of nearly 17 miles an hour. Previously it had been nearer 15.5 mph, although there were no real hills on this ride to slow us down and we were able to use "the BIG cog" for much of the ride.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Cold start again
I'm not quite sure how, but I managed to get up early and go out on the bike for 40 miles today.
We were going to visit Jules' parents in Farnham, so I found a route via Cranleigh, Loxwood & Milford which made it a decent number of miles. I managed it in 2 1/2 hours which I was pleased with; especially as the hills were bigger than google maps had made apparent!
I learnt some more about my Garmin today. Basically the route was a new one, and since I was riding alone, I loaded the route into the Garmin so it could direct me. I know most of the route, except the bit between Milford and Farnham, where I was hoping to take a short-cut through Seale. However, I did not notice the error when I loaded the route into the Garmin which said "route truncated". It gave me directions all the way to Milford, and then said I had arrived at my destination. Great!! I managed to find my way ok, but ended up doing an extra 3 miles or so.
As an aside here, the Garmin is an excellent device. However the software it comes with is not so great. I have to back up my data every time I use it in order not to lose data for previous rides I've done. Also the mapping software it comes with is rubbish (at least in the uk). Pretty much only the A roads are available, and since most of my routes are B roads for training, you can't plan a route using it. I therefore use GoogleMaps to plan my route, get the url and add the option "&output=js" to the end, save the resulting web-page and then use some freeware called GPSBabel to translate the Google data into Garmin data.
Anyhow; enough moaning. I beat my personal best for mileage again this weekend. 110 miles.
We were going to visit Jules' parents in Farnham, so I found a route via Cranleigh, Loxwood & Milford which made it a decent number of miles. I managed it in 2 1/2 hours which I was pleased with; especially as the hills were bigger than google maps had made apparent!
I learnt some more about my Garmin today. Basically the route was a new one, and since I was riding alone, I loaded the route into the Garmin so it could direct me. I know most of the route, except the bit between Milford and Farnham, where I was hoping to take a short-cut through Seale. However, I did not notice the error when I loaded the route into the Garmin which said "route truncated". It gave me directions all the way to Milford, and then said I had arrived at my destination. Great!! I managed to find my way ok, but ended up doing an extra 3 miles or so.
As an aside here, the Garmin is an excellent device. However the software it comes with is not so great. I have to back up my data every time I use it in order not to lose data for previous rides I've done. Also the mapping software it comes with is rubbish (at least in the uk). Pretty much only the A roads are available, and since most of my routes are B roads for training, you can't plan a route using it. I therefore use GoogleMaps to plan my route, get the url and add the option "&output=js" to the end, save the resulting web-page and then use some freeware called GPSBabel to translate the Google data into Garmin data.
Anyhow; enough moaning. I beat my personal best for mileage again this weekend. 110 miles.
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