Two weeks ago (9th May) I did a merry little 140km jaunt to Hastings with the tireless MWS, followed by fish/chips/pasties/coke on the beach, and a little 60km warm-down to Ashford before catching the train home. This was actually the longest single ride I’ve ever done (just over 200km = 125 miles) and my body wasn’t quite ready for it. My body definitely wasn’t ready to join Becky’s birthday party/clubbing expedition soon after – as a nice thank-you for staying out drinking till 3.30am, it rewarded me with something quite similar to swine flu, which has taken the best part of two weeks to shake. Bah.
By the way, when Matt got back, he promptly went for a 10 mile run with his mates, and apparently followed it the next day with another 20 mile run and an appearance at the swimming session…
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Thanks Matt for providing the .tcx file of the route recorded by his Garmin, which I converted to KML using this converter. I also recorded the route on my phone as per normal, but it was so damn long that the phone ran out of battery before it finished recording…
Amazing what a difference a week makes (or was it just the Snickers bars?) – I felt so much stronger than last time.
It was a beautiful ride – sunny and very scenic route (thanks MWS):
View 2009/05/02 120km with Tritons in a larger map
Another great ride this morning – the weather just about held and we even got some sun. I was quite pleased that I felt noticeably stronger than the monster 140km last week and managed to stay with the guys except for the end of the two brutal hills. Man, Cedric is fast.
View Tritons 112km in a larger map
That’s about 350km I’ve covered over the last 3 Saturdays, hope I can keep it up…
Tip for all you club riders out there – if, at the beginning of the ride, the leader happens to be an accomplished Ironman triathlete and asks what kind of ride you want, don’t say things like “long” or “I’d like to go some new places” unless you have a seriously masochistic streak!
It was Matt’s “taper ride” only 8 days before he runs the London marathon, so we thought it wouldn’t be too taxing (somehow we forgot he is hoping to run it in 2:40) – but 3 hours in, we started to see signs for places on the coast like Hastings, and then everyone was like “ummm… shit, where ARE we exactly!?” followed soon by a realisation that we were at least 3 hours away from home. On the plus side, I remember some truly beautiful scenery from the bits which weren’t blotted out by pain.
There’s a chunk missing because we were out for so long that my phone went into low battery mode and switched GPS tracking off…
My triathlon training has totally sucked so far this year, what with being away a lot and having a stupid cough for ages. Then just as I was beginning to get back into running I got a weird kneecap ache thing, probably through doing a 12-miler while out of shape. So still at my heaviest ever, around 72kg! Noone seems to believe me when I tell them, so there’s still a bit to go before I’m an official fatboy. The “pack-o-meter” is currently in the danger zone with readings around 4 rather than a healthy 6, any closer to 1 will represent a state of emergency… Beginning to get back into it now though – did manage my first gentle swim in ages in the hotel, and a quick run early with no knee ache at all which was encouraging.
Time for an early(ish) night then maybe up at 7am for the usual 80km with the Tritons but the forecast is cold and possibly wet so I may opt for a much-needed lie-in instead and then attempt to compensate via the CompuTrainer which I finally got up and running.
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