Busy week!

It would appear my Chinese training partner "One Lung Lee" has now departed and George has recovered from what he affectionately calls "Canning lung", as he's convinced I passed it onto him, and both have declared themselves fit to train.

With the weather holding up on the approach to the holiday weekend we felt it was a good idea to make hay so to speak and get a couple of rides in this week.

On Tuesday we were joined by Phill "the taxi" Conaty and the four of us set off from George's house and headed South down towards Olney. Although it wasn't going to be the longest of rides we were under a bit of a time constraint and so were intending on a non-stop trip of about 40 miles.

The countryside in rural Northants and Buckinghamshire is beautiful and we rode through some pretty typical English villages, complete with thatched cottages and village greens, the stuff my Canadian and US friends would die for back home. The roads were quiet and we made good time getting home without any real incident to be greeted by cake and coffee. All in all a decent ride with both the invalids getting through unscathed and keen to get out again later in the week.

Pitsford Resevoir

Thursday's ride was based on a local Sportive, The Shires and Spires, route amended slightly so that we could start at Pitsford Reservoir, just outside Northampton. The route was 50 miles long, our longest ride yet, and involved 5 or 6 significant climbs so all in all it was going to be a bit of a challenge. We were joined this week by Heather Watts, always keen to get a few miles in as part of her IronLady training.

Unbelievably for the UK we had our fourth or fifth day with bright Spring sunshine and although there was still a cool breeze it was a second opportunity of the week to air the Canning legs. We set off in high spirits if a little apprehensive about the hills. The last time I had ridden this route was a month or so before my Tour Du Canada trip in 2010 and that wasn't a ride I enjoyed as I really struggled with the climbing. I was really hoping the 2014 experience would be much better.

Early on I had my now customary whinge (I am told) about a mystery intermittent clicking the source of which I can't identify. A couple of miles into the trip George's phone dropped unseen from his pocket, luckily Mark saw something bouncing off his wheel out of the corner of his eye and shouted so George went back and found it. Once again I demonstrated my superior technological skills by not being able to get my Garmin to navigate properly, however despite the odd late call or missed turn we managed to stay on track.  The route was what some might call undulating, with not much flat stuff and lots of winding through narrow country roads and more quaint villages, even a couple of gates to open and close as we went.

Post Fried Sandwich

About two thirds of the way round we pulled in at Daventry Country Park for a coffee and something to eat. We ordered toasted sandwiches which sounded lovely, however, in Daventry they obviously get toasting and frying confused so we ended up with Bacon and Cheese sandwiches made with fried bread. I guess with the calories we were burning it wasn't that important but it did make me chuckle.



During lunch we attempted to switch on the turning guidance on the Garmin without success and had to abandon attempts and resort to having to read the instructions when we got home, something us men find almost too much to accept.

The remaining 15 or so miles was relatively tough with a run of 5 sharp climbs in short succession as we crossed the valleys back towards Brixworth. I'm no professional cyclist but I doubt Bradley Wiggins has ever overtaken a couple of horses going up the final climb and then found them catching him up as they broke into a trot behind him!!

I think both Mark and I felt it a bit during the last few miles and there was a lot more spinning up than attacking of the hills, but overall we were both happy with our progress so far at the end of the ride and I was certainly much happier than the last time I rode this route.

One Man Down

The week got off to a mentally challenging start with my first weekend away on an Endurance Running Coaching Course in Gloucester. Like all these types of things I find them hugely mentally challenging and come home knackered, the bonus now being I don't have to rush into work first thing Monday morning and have time to let things settle in my mind and work out how I will put the ideas into practice. The running club will be subjected to some experiments over the next 5 weeks or so before I go back for the next stage of the course.

At last the weather has picked up and Spring appears to have sprung! That of course means that at least one of our group is immediately smitten by the lurgy. George was and laid low last week, and still only just ready to start training again and now Mark finds himself unable to breath and subjecting himself to afternoons watching black and white movies lying on the sofa.

My week has thankfully been much better, sorting the garden, planting out my veg and sorting out all my end of year business admin etc. The bike is also back on the road having had some new bearings fitted which seems to have sorted out the annoying clicking sound from last week
 
On Thursday I was invited by Mark to go on a  ride with  a couple of local triathletes that he is involved in coaching. They meet quite regularly once a month and have a swim, ride and run day where they complete what is almost a half iron-man in terms of distance but without the rushing around in between stages.

Grafham Water

Swimming is not my greatest strength so I passed on the "opportunity" to swim for an hour and met the riders, Heather and Pedro, at Grafham Water for the cycle bit. I was a little daunted by the thought of trying to keep up with a couple of "Iron" people. It was clear from the start of the ride that I was a couple of miles an hour slower than they were used to riding at and I had to quite quickly get into the mindset that I was going to be working a lot harder than my normal longer rides in order to stay in touch. Heather and Pedro were great riding partners though and were very supportive, making sure I didn't get left behind.We had a really pleasant ride around some beautiful Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire countryside, I often wonder why anyone would want to leave this country, I can,t imagine many more beautiful places to live around the world. I do agree with Pedro when he said it could just do with being 3 degrees warmer!

From a  training perspective it was a bit like moving up a group at the running club, you know you're going to have to work harder to keep up but you're also aware that its doing you a lot of good to be challenged. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was quite chuffed to have completed 40 miles or so with a 2mph increase in my average speed without any significant issues and feeling really comfortable on the bike. I was however very glad that I hadnt committed to the 9 mile run that Heather And Pedro went on to complete afterwards.

Not sure what then plans are for the next week, it depends on Mark getting his lungs back. The weather seems to be set for a few days so with luck we might get out for a couple of decent rides next week. We need to start knocking out a couple of 3hour rides a week to build the stamina and then we can start doing some longer runs at the Spring warms up.

Onwards and Upwards.

Clicking driving me bonkers!

This weeks ride was a relativley short affair but not without incident.

Mark had decided summer was in the air and was bearing his legs: very brave as I was still well wrapped up against the chill. I'm not a warm person ("I know" I hear my wife scream), so it will need to be a few degrees warmer for me to expose body parts.

I knew as soon as I moved off I was in for a frustrationg ride as I had an unidentifyable clicking comng from the rear of my bike which despite a good check of the obvious culprits could not be cured. I continued on but, as with most annoying noises, it was slowly driving me bonkers.

The weather was Ok, a little misty but once up and running it was pleasant enough although we had to deal with a steady breeze which made the first half somewhat hard work but of course led to a faster more relaxed ride home.

About half way around the loop I stopped and had a good look at my rear wheel and sort of diagnosed the noise as somehting that might be spokes related, probably relating to lack of tension making them click.. .that's about the sum of our mechanical knowledge. 

The stop gave us the chance to take a photo or two to test the blog out and we able to post direct from my phone so at least we know that works. 

The rest of the trip was very pleasant, we only did about 21 miles but at least we were out and about and both of us felt our cycling legs were beginning to come back to us.

I popped into AJ's Cycles on the way home and have left the bike for them to have a look at, it would appear our guess is actually possible so they are going to let a real mechanic have a look.

I also ordered a new Hi-Vis Jkt so Cathy will be happy now!!

We've had out first LEJOG newsletter from Discovery Adventure. There will be 40 of us on the trip. Its quite exciting to realise we are not that far away now, we will start to get route details etc as we get closer but for the moment its all about getting the miles in during training

We shall go longer again next week.

Onwards and Upwards!!