Still getting out

The weather is still being kind to me, most of my rides lately are extending the ride home from work.
After moving a couple of years ago we now live a grand total of 1.5km from my work!
This has meant my mileage has dropped the last 2 yrs, last year I only managed 2500km in total.
This year so far I have added almost 1000km to that.

Tuesday after the Boroughbridge camping meet I took the bike to work, planning to ride a few km home, on leaving I found my legs were still fairly tired from the weekends km's so just rode around the redways instead.


Thursday saw me heading away from work again at near on midnight for a 1hr40 zone 2 ride around the villages SW of MK.


Kids at the weekend meant we both went out for a ride on Sunday afternoon towards Leighton Buzzard with the plan of popping in to visit Dawns mum.
In the end they weren't in when we rang so we did a slightly shorter loop round instead.
Most of this ride was in zone 1 for me, but it was good to ride together and the mileages and weight loss Dawn has been getting was definitely noticable. She is climbing hills a lot quicker than she has been and her avg speed is up.


Tuesday nights midnight zone 2 ride took me south again with no plan of where I was heading.
I ended up riding through Leighton Buzzard and around via Hockcliffe, Woburn and Salford for a total of 54km


Just 2 weeks now until the Upper Thames 200km, the one thing that I'm worried about is not getting in from work until midnight and having to be out of the door by 05.30 on Sat morning to drive over for the start.

Rich

Boroughbridge ALC camping meet.

This previous weekend I had planned to attend the Association of lightweight campers on their meet at Boroughbridge.

The plan was to load the bike with camping gear and cycle the 80km over to Peterborough for a train to York and 35km to Boroughbridge.

As per usual everything was last minute packing and loading the bike in the morning.

The ride over to Peterborough was fine apart from the usual ride with gps trying to route me along sandy lanes and bridleways! I took a slightly different way across from Kimbolton but the roads were very quiet until you hit the outskirts of town.

I thought about doing the ride as a LSD ride but wasn't too fussed if I didn't stay in the zones.

On checking Strava afterwards I actually managed to stay in zone 2 for 88% (2hrs 54m) of the ride with an avg heart rate of 114.

The ride over to the campsite was a bit quicker as I rode straight out of York on the A59 so was trying to move a bit faster, 30% of this ride was in zone 3.

The rides back were very similar apart from going down to Huntingdon on the old A1 instead of the hills to Kimbolton.

For a total of 250km for the weekend.

Sun morning

Sun afternoon

More ramblings..

Another week or so since the last post.
Only managed to get out twice last week as we were away Thu/Fri for a short break in Blackpool.

Still playing with the heart rate monitor and still not managed to get the HR anywhere near my perceived max!
Will give it a few more weeks of regular riding and then see if I can do a functional threshold test to set a benchmark to work on.

Tuesday saw me do a fastish ride to work.



Then a zone 2 ride home at midnight.
Keeping the heart rate inside the zone is interesting, as soon as you stop pedaling or go downhill slightly it drops by a beat a second. You have to work fairly hard to keep it there.



A weekend away meant no cycling but we walked miles along the seafront and back a few times.
Weight went up a couple of pounds but I'll put that down to bread and drink :-D
Have joined a Strava training plan to start with which is a first as my "training" has always been just get out and ride distance.
Will see how I do on it.

Back on it this week with squats at the gym on Tuesday, the planned long ride home was put back a day to Wednesday as I'd forgot my jacket and it was pissing down!



Nothing today (Thurs) but have a planned 280km total cycling planned this weekend, 80ish km over to Peterborough for a train to York and 35ish km ride to Boroughbridge for a camping meet.
Ride on Sat and same back on Sunday.
Don't think I'll be able to keep it in zone 2 for the whole ride over but will see what happens.

Oh, I've also entered a 200km audax ride for the 1st time in 4yrs!
I think I have done this ride 6 times before, It was my 1st 200km event back in 2006 and I'm sure I rode it every year until 2011 where it was my last calendar ride.
I think it's a good place to start again, and it will be interesting to see how I do on it.

Rich