A tin pot or two

The George Crouch Trophy

It's been a relatively big week on the bike, and started off really well. A pretty easy 20 miles taking the long way home from work and I felt really good and started to feel that the turbo sessions are really starting to get my bike fitness back. But once that was done, the rest of the week was really hard work and by Friday evening I had my usual scratchy throat which is my 'overtraining' indicator. Well, maybe not in this case as I had actually only done relatively few hours, but the early starts in order to get the sessions done have taken their toll and I don't think I was getting quite enough sleep to compensate. Yesterday, Simon and I went out on the TT bikes for the first time this year and we did 2 laps of the G10/42 course at a tempo effort. It was very hard work going out riding into a stiff southerly and I was well down on Simon on both loops, although I held station with him over the last 5 miles at the end, so not all bad.

We both ended up at the Phoenix Awards and Dinner Dance last night, which was a lovely occasion for us all. As well as the usual ceremonies we took time out to Remember Frank Cubis, and everything that he did for the club. It was fitting that Dale received the lion's share of the trophies including the 12hr trophy in which he also beat Frank's record which had stood for over 40 years. It was nice for me to win a couple of tin pots too. The one I had my eye on all last year was the George Crouch Trophy for the best improvement over 25 miles, and I won it having improved from 1:02:30 in 2015 to 55:49 in 2016. It made all those hours in a damp shed doing the Trainerroad plans worthwhile.