Different Training

With just about a month to go to the ride I feel I'm in a position where I'm ready for it but there's still time to do some training. And I also need to keep my interest up and not get bored. The boredom factor is important as I want to keep enjoying my riding and I also don't want to make a mistake and get injured just because I'm "getting it done". With that in mind I had a real shake up in my training this week.

Monday 7th May

Monday's ride was a recovery ride and I really couldn't decide what to do. As I left the house I thought I'd do my usual out and back to Tentsmuir Forest but when I got to the start point of my ride I decided to do circuits of the town until I reached my required distance. It was a lovely ride, and great fun to see my home town wake up. A novel cycle for my recovery.

Tuesday and Thursday

As well as riding a lot I also go to the gym to do some strength and conditioning work. This week ushered in some new exercises including one called face pulls. I had a picture of me standing in front of a mirror pulling all sorts of faces. Unfortunately that wasn't the case! But the new exercises are also a good change up. I'm still doing a lot of squat based exercises but it is nice to get new variations every now and again.

Wednesday 9th

A day to test the legs a little. Originally I was going to ride a variation of my 3 hills ride from last week, but in the spirit of doing something new I ended up doing some hill work. There's a road that runs south through Strathkinness towards Peat Inn. Apart from a little drop in Strathkinness itself it rises in a series of little steps which makes for a testing climb. After a little warm up I ended up at the bottom of this hill. And my work was to ride the hill, turn round, speed down and do it again. The speeding down did involve the little climb up in Strathkinness. I ended up doing this twice, both times in a big gear standing up on the pedals. That certainly tested the legs and my cardio-vascular system.

Friday 11th

I decided that on Friday I would just go for a ride. I picked a start I hadn't done for a long time. The steep climb out of St. Andrews passes the Grange Inn. It's not much of a hill, but at the start of a day it's hard enough. The route should have been a pleasant trip around the roads south of St. Andrews but the wind always seemed to be in my face until the last couple of miles. That made it hard.
One thing that came out of the day's data is the improvements in fitness I've been making. As well as the first climb I also did a climb from Arncoach that I hadn't done for some time. I didn't climb it any faster really but my average heart rate for the climb was 20 beats lower than the last time I had ridden it. That's an improvement I can live with.

Saturday 12th

The schedule called for 40 miles and I decided to potter about in the hills north of Cupar. I ended up doing 48 miles and for the second half of the ride I really enjoyed the cruising along. The first half had been a bit of a struggle not helped by a north west breeze. I felt I just didn't have the legs today, but again the numbers don't really bear that out. The only disappointing statistic was the average speed which I would have liked to have been a bit higher. Still, I went out and did the route I set, even adding a little on to pop up to Pitscottie near the end so I could go down through Kemback which is a lovely stretch of road. And for that I should be pleased with my morning's work.

Day Off

You may notice that this is being written on a Saturday. That's because I have Sunday off this week. Yee-hah! I promise just to put my feet up and rest. I'm sure that won't be hard to do.

Road Users

I would like to thank all the really good drivers I saw this week for their consideration. Thank you very, very much.
The one chap I really objected to this week was a pick up truck that decided to overtake me on a blind uphill bend, only for something to come down the hill on the opposite side of the road. If that wasn't bad enough, the pick up truck turned into a field about a quarter of a mile up the road. Not impressed...