Feeling good.

I was meant to head out on a 3 hour ride on Sunday but I just felt absolutely wiped out with too many late nights catching up with me and with the rain teeming down I decided to take another day off. I was so glad I did as Coach Cox had scheduled in an optional long ride on the Bank Holiday Monday instead, so with an early start to meet Simon and James, a clubmate of his, I got an early night and felt a lot better for it. We did our lumpy 3 hour ride with the only deviation seeing us heading out to Newlands Corner to do that climb which I have not done in a while. We 3-upped down the main road before heading left and up to Newlands. This was the first time in over two years that I was able to stick with Simon and go past him on a hill which is indicative ( I hope) of how my fitness and ME has improved over the last couple of months. I was really pleased with how I was going and I felt even better on the ascent of Coombe Bottom with it's nasty last 30 metres. Boxhill was even better. I was not pushing it particularly but just kept a really solid cadence and big-ringed it up the hill, passing dozens of other riders as I went, with Simon glued to my back wheel. It felt really, really good. At the top James had to leave us so Simon and I did a recce of the Hilly 12 time trial which I'll be riding next week. Can't wait.