Since the national championships I have felt pretty uninspired to get out and train. There have been a lot of races in quite a short period of time which seems to have taken it out of me, mentally and physically. I think in situations like this the best thing to do is get out of the routine of training and racing and do something a bit different. I this instance, the offer of 3 days cycling from Chester to Holyhead and back carrying everything we needed was the perfect tonic. Add into the mix that the Saturday was my birthday and that is pretty much my ideal weekend. The only person i knew on the trip was the organiser, Christopholopolopolis, who I have known since my days as a bike guide in his native Greece. We only rode about 50 miles a day but it was nice riding and although the coffee stops weren't up to much it was a good weekend. Since then my mind has been more concentrated on Kielder. I have done a more commuting by bike in the last 3 weeks than probably over the last 3 months. I am also trying to do more intensive back to back training days to prepare for racing when tired as I'm sure I will be for the last 10 miles of Kielder. For the last 2 weekends I have made the trip down to Swinley forest for some extended MTB riding. The first was only 32 miles but of pure singletrack which was surprisingly tiring. The trails around there are very tight and twisty with quite a few short sharp climbs to get you out of the saddle. It was a hot dry day and both myself and my nominated guide, George (Salsa UK) ran out of drink with a good hour to go.
This weekends ride was a much more serious affair with 80 miles over to the North Downs planned. It was another scorching weekend but fortunately there were places to top up our bottles, including one well timed cafe stop. I set off with local boys, George and Ben Thomas (last years winner of Kielder) and knew I was going to be struggling by the end. We met up with others along the way and at the half way point were a group of 6 which fortunately brought the pace down to a more comfortable level. There is some great riding over there including a few technical rooty sections. I managed to pull out my best superman impression on a not very technical drop in with my chin and knees taking the brunt of the impact. Fortunately no one was watching! By 60 miles we were back down to 3 and the pace picked up again. It wasn't my legs that were struggling the most, just an overall body fatigue. For the final 10 miles I was a total dead weight hanging well off the back of the other two! I would have told them not to wait for me except I had no idea where I was and I didn't rate my chances of getting back to my car without being guided! Hopefully this experience will be of benefit when it comes to Kielder, and certainly gives me a good idea of my current form and stamina and also teaches the valuable lesson of not to try to keep up with Ben during the race in 3 weeks time!
On Sunday I persuaded Emma to come out for a recovery ride with me. There was the Bike Blenheim sportive on using a lot of our local roads so I persuaded her it would be fun and a chance to ride with other people. Unfortunately due to quite a lot of faffing we didn't set off until nearly 10am so we were well behind the last of the sportive riders and they had packed away all of the marshals for the first half. Luckily there was a choice of doing an extra loop to make the ride up to 100 miles so on the second half we had plenty of company. We did 50 miles before peeling off to go home which was a perfect leg stretcher for me and the furthest Emma has ever cycled so it was a good morning out. Having blazing sunshine definitely helps too!
No comments:
Post a Comment