Upping the mileage

Since our last post Mark and I have been putting in some steady training both on and off the bike. 

We started out about 2 months ago with a fairly organised training plan but a combination of foul weather, work commitments and weddings has meant it's not been as structured as we'd hoped. Never the less with both of us being involved in the fitness business we have been able to do a fair amount of running, gym work and swimming to keep the flab off. 

Having said all of the above we have managed two fairly lengthy rides of 45 and 78 miles in the last two weeks. Ride no 1 was a re-run of the trip out to St Neots and back. The weather was kind to us and with only a light wind we had a fairly pleasant trip.  Mark was a little delicate after his daughter's wedding and he found it took him a while to clear his tubes and get back into his rhythm again.After a fairly steady ride out we stopped to get a bacon butty in St Neots surrounded by motorcyclists, then wound our way back to Raunds via Grafham Water. I think we could have gone further but time was against us as we were heading off go a post wedding BBQ so had to be back by mid-day. 

Our second ride of the fortnight was our longest and toughest ride so far. Planned for 80 miles it was nearly 25% longer than any of our previous rides. I found a sportive route that started and finished at Silverstone racing circuit, so with a little tweaking we rearranged it a bit and started at Towcester Police Station, making the parking a bit easier, and set off joined again by Phill and also Colin Newport. 

Now, at this point I must record that the sportive guide described the route as 'a gentle rolling ride through glorious rural Northants, Warks and Oxfordshire with a stiff test of the legs after about 50 miles as you turn for home.'

Well, they were absolutely correct, it was glorious rural countryside however "gently rolling" clearly has a number of possible interpretations with my own and the organisers clearly being somewhat different. 

I knew that the guys were "enjoying" the hills when after about 30 miles Mark coined the catchphrase "Oh turning left and going uphill again is it?".  Upon reflection he was right, we did seem to be doing more climbing than rolling than I had expected, but I was hoping the scenery was making up for it.

After about 40 miles we managed to finally find an open pub where we could grab a coffee and sandwich, I hadn't realised how rural the area was going to be, none of the villages had any coffee shops so we were more than ready for a little break.

We didn't fancy hanging around for long as we didn't want to stiffen up, Phill in particular was a bit peeved because one of the waitresses appeared to have eaten his chips somewhere between the kitchen and his table so we only stopped for about 20 minutes.

Profile for our weekend ride

Back on the road again we had a steady run into Warwickshire and then came across the small matter of Burton Dassett Country Park and the  "testing" little climb as it was described in the notes. I think Mark would use other words, it certainly was tough but thankfully not too long. 

After Burton Dassett we made steady progress back towards Brackley; we briefly lost Phill and Mark when they didn't see Colin and I turn down an alleyway, but after we regrouped we headed south to Stowe then back to Towcester via Silverstone.

Safe to say I think we all (well not so much Colin who is a much stronger rider than us) knew we'd done a few miles and climbed 1500m in the process when we got back to our cars, as you can see from the profile there wasn't much in the way of flat.

Overall I think we are both happy with where we are.  There is plenty of time left to build our fitness further and we know that we are already capable of the type of day we should expect on our LEJOG trip. What the long ride did was to remind me of the importance of almost continuous eating and drinking so you don't run out of energy. The support crew on our trip will provide regular drink and meal stops along the way so as long as we get used to sucking down gels etc every 20 miles or so all should be ok.

We plan to get out again during this week if the weather holds and start putting some back to back rides together over the next few weeks. 

Onwards and upwards.