Week ending 8th May...

Sunday, today, was a good day for me on the bike, It's been a couple of weeks since I've dared venture out onto the roads and today was a good day for me to do just that. Yes it's windy but at least it's warm so I pumped the tyres up on my Scott, stuck my water bottle in it's holder, switched on my Garmin and set on my usual training loop around Aston and Preston on the hill. The last time I rode this route was a month ago and I suffered, I was knackered after just 10 miles and was in pain. This time I rode a similar route and was able to maintain a 15.3 mph average and no stops except for junctions. None of this is phenomenal but for me to manage the distance without problems is good going and fills me with hope that I am just a few weeks away from the club runs and getting back to cycling normality.

During the week prior to my Sunday solo effort I have stepped up my turbo workouts, I have managed to maintain a workout ratio of two consecutive days to one day of rest and have seen my fitness increase by a small measure. A few more weeks of the turbo combined with a few road rides to rebuild my confidence on the road and I'm sure I will be fit enough to keep up with the boys - fingers crossed...

I still have a few hangups I need to get past, I came across quite a few areas on the cycle path I use where cherry blossoms had inconsiderately shed their blossom right across the path to make a pretty looking white thick blanket of the stuff and this put the hebegebes up me I can tell you. Gravel or twigs on a bend also has the same affect and I don't know why it should as in the 4 years and all the miles I have ridden I have only fallen off three times, none of them on twigs or blossom or gravel but once when I was pushed over when I was used as a cushion by a fellow club member (who will remain nameless) when he unclipped the wrong foot coming to a junction only to fall the wrong way and onto me and the other two times on black ice, once before last Christmas and the next and last was the big one in January where I momentarily became Samuel L. Jackson in 'Unbreakable' - he fell down the stairs breaking bones as if made of glass but in my case black ice causing me to break my glass like bones on the rock hard asphalt of a Cheshire country lane...