Another long one in the bank.

I am really pleased with how last week went and I currently have that achy tiredness you get from a sustained period of training. For me, last week included some pretty big numbers, mainly in the saddle. In fact I cycled every day and on four days, twice in a day. It's rather shocked my body but I have to say I already feel fitter, stronger and more comfortable on the bike, which bearing in mind I am going to be spending a lot of time on it during the Forestman, is a good thing. It culminated in two weekend bike sessions, the first being a one hour turbo in the garage followed by a long bike on Sunday. The turbo session was conducted while it was a balmy 22 degrees outside, light winds and broken cloud; the long bike, unfortunately was not.

I was up at 4.30am to get some breakfast in me (big bowl of cereal / banana / tea) and on the road by 5. I was dressed lightly for a sunny ride but within minutes of me stepping outside the door the grey clouds dumped on me and I stopped while I pondered whether to turn round and put more layers on. I decided against it hoping that it would perk up and also assumed that I wouldn't race with a waterproof on, so why train in one? Hmmm....

I took the long way round to Simon's house to meet him and had 40 minutes or so on the clock by the time I got there and then we set out on the A24 to Ditchling Beacon and back. It was pretty grim at first and I was cold and wet, in particular my feet were blocks of ice and I was having trouble shifting the gear levers because my fingers had started to numb up. Oh well, no one said it would be easy. Towards West Grinstead the sun started to make an appearance and my top half began to warm up but my legs felt like wood; I just couldn't get them warmed up, mainly because of my sodden feet and once again, on every slight incline I'd find it hard to maintain my cadence and have to downshift, trying to get my legs to revolve. It seemed that I was going to have a pretty grim day ahead of me. It was however, really good to be cycling on new roads and in new countryside and once we were off the A24 everything became very pretty and it helped to take my mind off how I was feeling. We approached Ditchling and as soon as we hit the bottom, Simon was off and before I knew it I was in the granny gear, pulling myself up. I normally like to sit in the saddle when climbing but I really needed to get out and stretch my legs and I was changing my position constantly; a sure sign that I was not very happy. Simon was waiting for me at the top and we had some food (Elevenses bar; food of Champions;-) and some PSP before turning around and heading back.

Although there was a stiff wind, I felt much better almost straight away. I had been feeding properly on the outward leg but I was just much warmer now and the short rest combined with now dry feet and warmer muscles meant that I was able to maintain my cadence much better. As we made our way home I was really enjoying the fact that I was not now feeling particularly fatigued and even had that nice feeling a couple of times on a rolling road where even though the road is going up it doesn't halt your cadence or speed and there's no need to change down gear. It doesn't happen often, but it's nice when it does.  :-)

Simon and I swapped being at the front as we time trialled back home (no drafting btw) and by the time I got back home I had exactly 100 miles on the clock in 5.47.xx including a couple of stops. Not earth shattering, but not too bad either.

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been getting to grips with Training Peaks and the really useful that I have found with it is how it can tell you quickly the ratios of how much you're doing in the different disciplines. I have had a big bike focus over the last 3 weeks that has begun to pay dividends but I need to put some more time into some swim sessions in order that I can arrive at T1 not feeling completely wiped out.