Lots of travel with work this week - London, Glasgow and Burnsall - combined with a couple of nights of beer has meant no time on the bike since Sunday.
The weekend was, however, surprisingly not bad. We're still having a series of massive low pressure areas blasting off the Atlantic, which has meant very strong winds - generally westerly or southerly. Saturday in preparation for the Fred, Herb and I rode over Carleton Moor and over towards Haworth into a block headwind. Hard going, but a good workout for just under 40 miles. Then on Sunday we went with the club over to ride the course of the Pool Triangle 10m TT - but of course being at Pool the ride was actually over 50 miles. The wind was howling out of the west, so we averaged about 22 mph for the ride over, then battled back at nearer 14 mph.
I might get out briefly tomorrow, but as I'm off skiing again on Saturday I may leave it and get back on it when we come back.
Either way, we're not under 90 days to the Fred. I'm still about 5-7lbs heavier than I'd like to be, but with a very posh chalet and really good food next week I'll worry about that when we get home!
Thursday, 13 February 2014
Thursday, 6 February 2014
Low mileage months
January was my lowest mileage month since I started this getting fitter lark - mainly on account of a long weekend skiing, but also the crap weather and if I'm honest a bit of a fall in motivation. Once I'm on my bike all is well, but with this being the third month of coming home from work in the dark and with an endless series of Atlantic storms pushing wet and windy weather through, it has got a bit hard at times.
Weekends have been ok, and compared to the people I ride with I seem to be holding my own fitness-wise - Herb has been toasted nicely a few times, and with the exception of Rich Sutcliffe from SCC, I seem to be able to get up hills as fast as most.
Skipton CC has now started a chaingang, and whilst I've only been three times (which is as many times as it's happened) it's a really good, fun way of getting a decent effort in and getting home for elevenses.
I've got a mount for my Garmin Virb camera, so have knocked up a little film of the last one - Herb's really earning his nickname of "The Meat" when pushing big gears on the flat - 28mph along Bingley by-pass...
January ended up being 610 miles for the month - which would be easily the biggest mileage month prior to last May, but is actually the lowest in about nine months. February's likely to be a low mileage month too, with a full week away skiing, as well as work getting in the way a bit. Once March is here and we start getting lighter nights, I should be able to increase my Monday to Friday mileage, which seems to have stabilised at about 75-80 up 100, which I regard as "par" these days.
I'll need to, as we've now had confirmation we're in the Fred Whitton on May, which is followed a week later by the Etape du Dales. Tough old seven days...
The next event is a sportive up in the Eden Valley, which will be Bob's comeback event - he had his hip replaced just before Christmas, so he'll be doing really well riding a 60 mile sportive this soon.
Weekends have been ok, and compared to the people I ride with I seem to be holding my own fitness-wise - Herb has been toasted nicely a few times, and with the exception of Rich Sutcliffe from SCC, I seem to be able to get up hills as fast as most.
Skipton CC has now started a chaingang, and whilst I've only been three times (which is as many times as it's happened) it's a really good, fun way of getting a decent effort in and getting home for elevenses.
I've got a mount for my Garmin Virb camera, so have knocked up a little film of the last one - Herb's really earning his nickname of "The Meat" when pushing big gears on the flat - 28mph along Bingley by-pass...
January ended up being 610 miles for the month - which would be easily the biggest mileage month prior to last May, but is actually the lowest in about nine months. February's likely to be a low mileage month too, with a full week away skiing, as well as work getting in the way a bit. Once March is here and we start getting lighter nights, I should be able to increase my Monday to Friday mileage, which seems to have stabilised at about 75-80 up 100, which I regard as "par" these days.
I'll need to, as we've now had confirmation we're in the Fred Whitton on May, which is followed a week later by the Etape du Dales. Tough old seven days...
The next event is a sportive up in the Eden Valley, which will be Bob's comeback event - he had his hip replaced just before Christmas, so he'll be doing really well riding a 60 mile sportive this soon.
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