Well, the weather put paid to….
My season officially started on Sunday. It
was a warm but breezy day so I decided on an adventure up to Norwich Norwich
I tend to park at Sloughbottom Park
The first thing that became obvious was that
being a Bank Holiday (doh!), it was packed with walkers and ‘cyclists’ which
impeded progress occasionally. However, most of the traffic was within 300
yards of the car parks along the route and, especially beyond Thorpe Marriott,
it became slightly less congested.
Did piss me off slightly when I got hissed at
by groups of people whilst whizzing past them, I mean it IS a major cycle route
and you ARE walking 17 abreast across it. WTF am I supposed to do? Plus, a
major bugbear of mine generally – uncontrollable dogs off leads. It got to the
stage where I just felt like running them over to be honest, feigning a crash and then rolling around for a while pretending I'd broken my collarbone or something, mumbling 'insurance details please' between moans to really shit their owners up...
Having said that, I did get a squirrel, no,
no, not on purpose. In fact I nearly crashed trying to avoid it. It ran out in
front of me, went left, went right… then went left again… then decided to run
alongside me before throwing itself into the spokes of the front wheel. It sort
of bounced off and vanished. There was no sign of a mangled corpse on the
return trip so it must have survived. Stupid thing.
Anyway, quite a sluggish trip up to Aylsham
(which I put down to the strong NW wind) before a quick flap jack and a turn
around. Went like a maniac on the way back, getting some air on the jumps etc
and despite numerous stops to put my chain back on (really need to spend some
money on the MTB) and avoiding walkers / dogs / families on bikes and detours
around sections closed because of large holes caused by ‘badger activity’, I equaled my fastest ever ride
back from Aylsham. Trouble was, I could barely stand up when I got back to the
car….
 |
| Shhhh... Any minute now... Wait 'til you see him go over the handlebars, you'll piss yourselves... Don't forget, go straight for the flapjacks in his back pockets hee hee hee... |
Monday’s ride was a much more sensible ride
on the road. To my surprise, I found I was rolling big gears quite nicely at
lower intensities but as soon as I tried to go reasonably hard my legs just
didn’t want to know so I took it steady for a couple of hours.
Felt slightly better on Tuesday so went out
on a nice tempo loop towards Beccles / Bungay for 2 1/2 hours. Was probably
about 30-40 mins too far as I got quite a serious hunger knock at that point
(which is quite rare for me incidentally – don’t know what that was about).
Felt much better towards the end of the ride,
in fact I decided I fancied a crack at a TT that evening! The weather looked
better in the north of the county so I headed up to Sheringham for the NN
Wheelers 10.
Few spots of rain but managed to stay dry for
the ride. Bloody windy though! Felt tired from the off so I suppose the
screaming tailwind to the turn did me a huge favour and served as a warm-up if
nothing else. HR stuck at about 155 and legs feeling pretty puny but I overtook
a couple of people so obviously wasn’t embarrassing myself too badly.
Holt roundabout in just a bit over 10 mins
then the looooong grovel back to the finish. The smallest gear I’d got was a 56
x 18 and I really struggled with it into that wind, especially on the uphill
bits. Got to the finish in 23:30 something feeling like I’d had a seriously
hard workout! Back at the start though, I found out that a couple of blokes had
ridden it ON FIXED! Chapeau lads….
But that bloody Boardman saddle! Been saying
it for ages but it’s got to go. Might scavenge the super comfy Avatar saddle
from the MTB for the rest of the season…
 |
| New real leather Boardman saddle for 2013 |
Felt absolutely stuffed the next morning but
after a huge bowl of porridge I perked up a bit. Opted for a steady couple of
hours again and the old legs felt much more nimble afterwards. We had planned to go for a swim & sauna
but people were queuing out of the doors for the leisure centre so we didn’t
bother. Plan B was to visit Hales Hall nursery and have a browse around some of
their exotic plants… but they were closed.
Plan C was to visit CJ Ball’s Motorbike
showroom at Hales and perhaps even take the latest superbike out for a test
ride but when we got there it had changed hands and had become a mobility
scooter showroom.
Plan D was go home and have an enormous
fry-up….
I woke up after a longer than expected nap
and had the mad idea of riding the CCB TT out towards Dereham that evening.
Ridiculously strong coffees and Trigger in the back of the car and we were on
our way!
This was a 15 miler which is an unusual
distance I suppose. To my surprise, my
legs didn’t feel too bad warming up… initially at least. I had that nice
sensation again of rolling a big gear quite easily at steady speeds but as soon
as I tried to go fast the legs turned to a kind of tetanised jelly. Hmmm…
Windy again but 3 x 5 mile laps broke it up
quite nicely and it wasn’t too much of an ordeal. I just ‘rolled’ most of the
first lap, not feeling particularly racey at all. Tried slightly harder for the
second lap and tried to go flat out for the 3rd but it wasn’t
happening really. Max HR was 158, well short of normal. Managed significantly
positive split times for the 3 laps which is something I suppose but
disappointed that I didn’t beat the magic 25mph average. Never mind.
Weather permitting I might nip out for a
couple of hours this afto then try the local GYCC 10 up the road at Somerleyton
this evening. Then I’ll have few well earned days off!
Haven’t performed fantastically well this
week but I’m happy with the basic fitness.
Not broken out in a sore throat or bubonic plague either. Result!
No comments:
Post a Comment