Spring has Sprung

EB ride down to Cavendish this morning - just Richard out with me. Last hard ride of the week planned tomorrow and then two days of rest planned before Sunday's Lakeland Loop.

Barden and Langbar...and Gerrard and Torres

No other early-birds out this morning so I opted for a longer ride out to Barden and then back via Langbar.

Tonight saw Liverpool overcome Arsenal in an epic Champions League quarter-final encounter.

Rest

No riding today. Too much beer last night. It was great to have a night out with all the early-birds though.

More bad weather forcast for the next few days, but it is my first sportive of the year on Sunday (Lakeland Loop) so will be tapering my training for that.

Two Rides over the weekend

After having 5 days off the bike, I've had a good weekend - riding both yesterday morning and this morning.

A nice gentle 25 mile ride (in torrential rain albeit) yesterday, and about 45 hilly miles under glorious blue skies this morning. Felt great this morning - came back on my own and big ringed it all the way - I'm thinking of doing the odd time-trial in the summer.

This evening is the Early-Birds second birthday party which should be good fun!

A week's rest

I've been off my bike since Sunday's ride - in fact I've done no exercise to speak of.

The chill/cold/virus or whatever it was that I was suffering gone has finally lifted, and today I feel almost 100%.

Tomorrow morning I aim to go on the 2 hour early-bird ride, and hopefully it won't cause any problems.

The Horror of Littondale

Today was a tough, tough ride and for once I was off the back, cast adrift in a place of despair, pain and suffering I am not used to!

It was a long early bird ride - Arncliffe and then over to Malham - a road I did not know. It was also the "a" team out - probably the fastest group of early-birds (well, fastest considering we are all middle-aged fathers-of-many).

There was a strong headwind all the way out, and by Arncliffe, after having done a couple of hard stints on the front, I was dead. This was not helped by not wearing my rain-jacket and being thoroughly soaked through.

A quarter of the way up the climb, the headwind was so intense that I had to stop and unclip, and push for the final section of the steep bit. The ignominy!

And in case you aren't sure what ignominy means, from dictionary.com:
1. disgrace; dishonor; public contempt.
2. shameful or dishonorable quality or conduct or an instance of this.

I felt awful from there on in, and struggled home to suffer for the rest of the day.

I'm obviously not feeling well, so a few days off the bike is planned. Which is a real shame as I have three days off work and the weather is starting to look good.

The other day I waxed lyrically about why and how I felt so strong, and today I don't know why I felt so bad.

The above text is littered with excuses though, which is a bit of a kop-out.

Perhaps it was just a bad day at the office.

A hard week catches up with me

Struggled out of bed to the sound of torrential rain and made it down to the meeting point for 630am to meet the other Early Birds.

Everyone else saw sense and chose to stay in bed, so I cycled down to Cavendish and back. There were strong winds and driving rain on the way back and I went straight to my train cold, wet and very weary. Spent the rest of the day trying to warm up.

Still, it's been a good week's training. Over the last 7 days I've ridden 5 times (in total maybe 11 hours of riding, 160 hilly miles) and ran once (5 miles).

I've come though it with no mishaps.

Tomorrow is rest day and then a longish steady ride planned for Sunday.