Aha. Today is over a week since my last post and water has run under a bridge somewhere since then. I last posted last Tuesday. From the office. Wednesday I went for a ride and lounged about at home. Wednesday evening went to ride the club bash. No-one turned up as it pissed down with rain, so I did 4 laps on my own and did some 1 minute blasts at sort of hard pace.
Thursday was good. I went to Parkers and bought some socks and a blue chainring (?) Then went off to Church Stretton and looked for trilobites. Found some fragments in Ordovician flags up a track near Cardington, just east of Caer Caradoc. Sunny with the odd shower, mild and a really nice run out ! Then I bought 4 bottles of beer (the nice stuff flavoured with passion fruit, Youngs Acclaim I think its called), drank 'em and half a bottle of red. (From the Ventoux, as the Tdf is going up the Ventoux this year).
Friday ? Phone call off sales guy. Got it all sorted out up here (horwich, where I am now).
Saturday was day 1 of the club 2-day. My first ride with non veteran racers. Did a crap time in the 2 mile TT, 5.11 and came in 43rd. I could have ridden harder and I knew it, so why didn't I ? Fear that I would burn myself out for the road stages ? Then did a 45 mile 12 lapper. Sat near or on the back most of the time. It was hard in parts but nothing to make me chew the 'bars.
Sunday, 46 mile 13 lapper, flatter than Saturday. Our team was 4th overall (Birmingham CC vets), we hatched a plan with guy out of the Royal Sutton, to jump away with him with 4 laps to go. Didn't happen. One of our team was 5th in the sprint.
Finished 42nd overall (out of 85 ? starters, 74 finished). So I beat a fair number of riders half my age.
Monday, car got took off to have the bash guard fitted to the bumper. Had a good ride out, was just going for 15 miles, but the sun, the warmth, the countryside east of Redditch was so pretty. Had a really enjoyable ride around Shellfield. What a nice spot, quiet roads, sun melting the tarmac, and so on. Bought an ice cream, yum.
Drove up to Bolton in the evening, that was a nice drive, went up through Ashbourne and Buxton. Then went to the bar and had a lager shandy, which turned into a couple of pints of strong lager and a few Smirnoff Ices, bed at 0100.
Tuesday, work and a plod round. Wednesday work, plod round and did a horrible interval session. Went 2 sprints up a steep hill, changed it to a less steep hill and did a further 4. Felt so bad was almost sick, retching. The rested and did 2 more. All at between 91% and 95% of max heart rate. I got up to 165 on 1st sprint.
That one really hurt. Well, they all really hurt.
Quiet on the h front this week.