Some decent miles

First -  a quick and MASSIVE thank you to the folk who have donated to Macmillan Cancer Support through my Justgiving site.  EVERY penny helps and people have been fantastically generous.  Thank you all :o) 


I had a few jobs to get done today and a decent window of opportunity to get out for a longer ride.

A quick squizz at the weather report showed a 6-7 hour window of windy but not wet weather - so I set about planning 'something' to do within that.
Because of where we live there was no option to head out into the wind so as to benefit from it on the way back. So I chose the circular route that is about 86 miles - but in the opposite direction to that which I normally ride it.

This would give me a reasonable stretch of side/back wind in the first half, and after that it would be side/front and headwind to get back. It was going to be a pretty hard ride, I thought.
I was right!!

I DO like this particular ride though. It diddles around lots of country lanes, it has a few half decent inclines to wake my legs up, and it's a decent distance without any long draggy boring bits.

I tweaked the drink and food strategy a little bit too - first food at 20 miles and then every 15 miles thereafter. This seemed to work quite well!
I also decided on a five minute off the bike and stretch out stop at the 50 mile food window.I'd had a text from the wife a little while after that, and I knew there was a cafe at the Cannock Chase Forest Centre which was at 66 miles, so I had an impromptu coffee and cake stop there as well so that I could call her to get updated on the goings on. Serious stuff - but not relevant to this blog :o)
By this point I'd been riding into a stiff headwind (weather report reckoned 30-35kmh) for 25 miles, and it had been quite hard work. And I knew that the next 20 or so was much of the same - but with a bit more 'side' in it.

Odd thing happened at about 75 miles - legs seemed to suddenly wake up again, and they felt loads stronger. Food and rest? Or something else? I don't know. It was nice to be riding both stronger and faster though.

So it was 87 miles and a few pennies in 5:49 riding time. Total time including stops was 6:24
Pretty pleased with that as a training ride. It IS tough when you are on your own in the wind and can't share the work with anyone, isn't it!

OK - Justine my physio has ordered me to get to work on stretching out various bits of my legs - so I'm going to do some of that now.
For those who know me well - I know, I know :-p

Not sure how the rest of the week and the weekend is going to pan out - possibly another long ride tomorrow - a shorter one on Thursday as I have hospital and physio appointments to fit in.
Maybe another longer one on Friday. Not sure about the weekend yet, although I'm supposed to be doing the Lakeland Loop Sportive on Sunday followed by a trip to see Robin from Team Nutrition, who has pledged his support for the 10 Freds!! Top bloke :o). I'll see what happens in Other News before I plan out the weekend!!