Ciarans winter warmer!

I did the same 40 mile route twice this weekend. On Saturday with Ciaran, and on Sunday with both Ciaran and Simon.

I had wanted to show Ciaran the route that Rich's friend Fraser had taken us on a week ago, but Ciaran had also wanted to show me a route he does over the winter for base training. Basically it takes in a bunch of hills.

Funny thing was it was largely the same route that Fraser had done (except we did not do White Down hill on Ciarans route, instead looping back on ourselves and heading back the way we had come.

I felt rubbish on Saturday - especially on the hills. Not sure why, maybe lack of sleep. I was out late on Thursday night at the Times Charity awards where CHASE had been nominated for a prize. Thankfully I felt much better on Sunday. So, apart from not drinking I will now need to make sure I get enough sleep up to the ride!

The Garmin was also not on top form on Saturday. When I loaded the route onto my computer when we returned, the route itself looked right, but the elevation was way off. It was quite wet and cloudy, so I wonder if it could not get a good enough signal. I've included the two elevations below so you can see how far out it was (the top one is Sunday and looks right to me)!

Hilly Hundred

You see the thing about Rich is that he's a bit random. You either choose to go along with him or you get scared & steer well clear. Todays plan was to meet up on the Windsor loop, then go do some Surrey hills & meet a friend of Rich's called Fraser en route. After I'd got my hundrd in I could duck out and go home while Rich continued to cycle with Fraser, and then when he'd had enough he would cycle home again (after all it's only 50 miles...). Rich's plans are always complicated.

Skeptical, I set out alone for Windsor at 6am. It was the first time I'd cycled alone for a few weeks, and I found my mind wandering thinking about the race, thinking about Fraser (my Fraser, not Rich's friend...) and thinking how blummin cold it was.

I arrived at the loop in good time, and decided just to cycle round it as I was early rather than phone Rich. As it turned out Rich was running late, so I got a complete circuit in before we met up. By this time I'd done over 30 miles.

We set off back towards Guildford following the route I'd taken to get up there.

"Right, let's get started" said Rich - he was looking forward to getting some hills in. I took him up Pebble Hill (out of West Horsley) as a warm up. Then a nice long downhill towards Ranmore, and up Ranmore via Crocknorth Road. Once we'd got to the top, we did a U-turn straight back down and up the long descent we'd just dropped down in order to meet Fraser at Shere.

As it turned out, we were a bit early to Shere (I'd thought it would take longer to get back up the hill), so we did a quick blast out through Gomshall and back.

By this time we'd done over 60 miles, so I was pleased when Fraser called to say he was in the Lucky Duck tea-room. We had a quick break & Fraser bought us some tea. I'm sure it was the nicest tea I've ever tasted.

It's been a while since I've seen Fraser, and I'd fogotten just how fit he is. Whilst we were drinking our tea, he told us about how he had won the Dorking 10k race for the third year in succession a few weeks ago having completed a triathalon earlier in the morning!! He is currently in training for an iron-man race in July.

After tea, Fraser decided to show us one of his routes & we took the long hill up out of Shere up Sandy lane and on to Hound House lane. This was a fantastic climb - I've only ever done it coming down, and remember thinking I didn't fancy doing it in the upwards direction, but it's actually quite nice; gentle gradient for 3 miles or so.

Sharp left & a long descent into Peaslake then straight up a hill again across towards Holmbury St Mary. Another nice long descent through Holmbury and Abinger Hammer. A short blast along the A25 and then left up White Down hill. I hadn't appreciated that White Down hill is a bit of a legend (along with Leith Hill & Boxhill) amongst local cyclists. Up until this point, we'd all been sticking together on the uphills and I noticed that Rich & I were more out of breath trying to talk than Fraser was. However at White Down hill, Fraser just disappeared leaving Rich and me looking like amateurs!

The top of White Down brings you onto Ranmore common again, and we turned along my normal route towards Boxhill.

Time was ticking on (I'd said I'd be back by 1pm), so I decided not to join them on Boxhill, and turned back towards Guildford. I was worried I wasn't going to make my 100 miles I'd been aiming for, but Rich seemed confident I should do it; and since everything else had gone well with his random plans, I had no reason to doubt him.

I decided to go back via Polesden Lacy because I thought it would be flatter. Wrong! Still it was a new hill I'd not done before. When I say I went via Polesden Lacy I mean it quite literally, and cycled all the way up to it before realising it is a dead end!

Back down to the A246 and my morning training ride home through Effingham.

Rich was wrong by the way. My Garmin said 99.98 miles by the time I got home!