Today was Valentines day and in order to stay in the good books of our better halves we planned for a short ride of just 40 miles around North Cheshire so as to be back nice n early. Metcheck had promised us a -2' C night with a sunny but cold early morning and that's what we got. I planned to ride out to the meeting point but a spare parts delivery to other club members had me in the car instead, didn't matter but I did want some extra miles in to take me above the 100 mile mark for the week as I needed 44 miles minimum from today's ride.Loading the car up revealed a thin layer of ice on the car and fog on the ground so I was glad of the drive out and hoped it would all be gone but I hoped in vain, the fog was still quite thick come 9am the time we set off from Stretton. Nine of us set out but within a mile we were all semi-blinded not just from the early morning fog but also from our glasses steaming up rendering us incapable of seeing where we were going so off with the glasses and on with the ride.
The ride itself was not really a hilly one but of course heading out to the Willingtons and back through Frodsham did involve some hills along the way and I am glad to say the training I'm putting in is doing me some good, the short hills I found a lot easier than on previous rides and some I stormed up. On the longer hilly drags I did my usual thing going up at my own slow pace and the legs felt great, felt great for the duration of the ride. One hiccup was that my heart rate monitor was playing up telling me that I was either at 70 to 90 bpm or sometimes 200+, when I stripped off later I found the reason why, the chest strap had become a stomach strap...
As the morning progressed the fog cleared and the sun came out, it was still quite cool but what a nice day it turned out to be as we travelled the leafy lanes of Cheshire, no water on the road, no ice, not many cars out, not much in the way of road crap and this is the first ride of the year when the bike hadn't needed much of a clean when I got in, things are looking up. I did make the extra miles up tagging them onto the end of the ride so my target of 100 miles for the week was achieved - just...
There is still a lot of work for me to do between now and the Cheshire cat which is just 6 weeks away, I know I'm going to suffer tremendously on the hills but I hope that the time I'm putting in now will make them just a little bit easier than last year...My Stats
44.43 miles, 3hrs 6min, Av Speed 14.3, 1970 ft climbing
Total for the week
100.8 miles
Good work hitting the 100M this week Mark and you were flying up the hills. That Chris Carmichael has a lot to answer for (your domestique couldn't keep up)!
ReplyDeleteLOL probably just a one off. However I have noticed the ease with which you now glide up them hills now Phil so there's at least 2 of us seeing our hard work payoff ;)
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