Wow! The weather was so bad yesterday - long ride day. I peered out of the window at 0730 and there was a thin covering of snow and a brisk wind blowing. Undeterred, I prepared for my 3 mile spin into St Ives to meet the rest of the St Ives CC members. I have joined the club now and can call my new cycling buddies team members! The weather didn't improve much as I gingerly rode onto the rather slippery roads. The snow did stop. However, sleet and rain soon replaced the snow. The wind was very icy and I was numb before I arrived at the meeting point!
I recharged my enthusiasm by thinking of how many competitors may skip training due to the weather. Off we set. I can honestly say that the conditions were the worst that I have ridden in. There was a coffee stop planned at 33 miles but it seemed to be taking an age to get there - it was slow going! We started off as a group of 14. We were down to 6 by the time we stopped at the Little Chef (they do a nice cappuccino.....but any hot drink would have tased great!). The other guys turned round way before the stop, and that left 6 of us to crawl into the Little Chef to cry as our hands thawed out - that was painful. My hands were so cold I could not change gear; even breaking became difficult. After the stop the weather did improve and the sun even came out! Even so, I was tired and the 65 miles in total seemed far harder than the 73 of the previous week. Does anyone make a glove for cycling that is actually half water proof and keep your hands warm! I bought some dhb gloves for £16 and they are no better than my Aldi gloves that cost me £2.50!
Well that was 2 paragraphs of whinging! No sympathy required, as it was all self inflicted - that's what I tell Julie and she happily agrees with me!
Friday's training was ok(ish). My legs were still too sore from the conditioning session I did on Wdnesday to complete a decent 2 x 20 min turbo session. So I selected the same Wattage of 270W and completed 2 min effort and 1 min recovery continuous. After that I did 3 x 1 mile in cold and windy conditions. I eased into these and opened up on the last rep - 6:08, 6:00, 5:41.
Now that I seem to be struggling to recover within the limitations of a single week, I am discarding the number 7 from my training week! No more squeezing everything into a week. I will now complete the scheduled workout when I feel that I am completely rested. This should avoid this fatigue that I have started to wake up to!
Later bloggers.
2 comments:
Total respect for going out in those conditions Sags, unfortunately I was faced with far worse. We had about 5" of snow on the ground with constant snow and hail showers all day. I had the challenge of driving to the top of the north yorks moors in it on Saturday for a night shift and then on Sunday it took 2 hours 10 mins to get home it was that bad. To put it into prospective I can cycle home in 1hr 48!!!
Sounds very yuk dude! get the mountain bike out and have some fun in the snow? 2 hours of your time to get back from work is not good. Take the turbo into work and stay there!
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