Sunday 15 March 2015

Back in the saddle

It was my first tt of the season and it was the SCCU Sporting 21, which I rode last year. A two lap affair with a fast bumpy descent over a couple of miles followed by a much longer drag back for the rest of the lap.  I hadn't looked at the weather forecast and didn't realise it was due to be so cold. I therefore sat in the car park at the HQ with my heated car seats on trying to delay the inevitable, but with 10 minutes to go I had to make my way to the start.

The first lap was really horrible and a rider who started 2 minutes behind me caught me after about a third of the lap. Unlike last year I was riding my road bike as I just felt it would give me a more comfortable ride. I just didn't fancy this course on a tt bike. After negotiating the descent we turned back northwards to the start and it was into the eye of a very cold northerly wind while ascending all the time. My speed dropped even further and at the first large hill my minute man went past me like I was standing still.

After that it was a change of mentality and I just thought about riding steadily to the finish and my second lap was actually much better, particularly on the climbs. I think I had warmed up a bit by then although I still couldn't find my feet. I ended up riding almost three minutes faster than last year despite not being on the argon. An improvement of sorts.

I have not done a park run for a couple of weeks. Out of nowhere, on a very gentle run my left Achilles started to get very sore so I have cut right back on the running. At the moment I am just fitting in some training as and when I can which I suppose keeps thing interesting.


Monday 2 March 2015

Parkrun #7

19:18 34/994

No stupidly long warm up this time. Just a quick 800 m jog and then straight to the start. I put myself much nearer the front and found myself galloping along at my usual pace much more quickly, although my legs were a bit heavy initially. It was a pretty windy day so the middle leg felt quite slow (my Garmin has decided not to send any data to my laptop so I don't have any pace info at all), but I was still overtaking a few people in the last kilometre. I started my sprint too early and got overhauled on the line by a whipper snapper. Still it was a comeback pb, so pretty pleased. Wheezy Junior did his second Parkrun and set a new pb by over 30 seconds as well, so that was a great effort. I think he'll be going sub 22 before too long.

Other than that. not a lot to report. Running is going ok but no real long runs but I am keeping the faster running going. I've got to get some time in the saddle at some point as my first Sporting tt is this weekend and it's going to be a horrible one. 27 hilly miles on no real training whatsoever. It's going to hurt. A lot.