Easter Weekend Training

With a couple of months to go, we have all got to a level where we can ride 130 miles comfortably at about 15 mph. Our challenge now is to ensure we can do this kind of distance for seven days consecutively and at a slightly higher speed. It looks like we can all get fit enough and endurance will be the key so from here on in, its miles in the saddle that will count.

It wasn’t a particularly well coordinated training regime this weekend. Jeremy has gone off to the Canary Islands and according to e-mails is enjoying rather too much sunshine and sangria although he does confess to having hired a bike and hooking up with cycle training camp on Grand Canaria comprising mostly German athletes half his age, so God only knows what state he’ll be in when he gets back. With Chris also out of the picture, Good Friday saw Graham and I heading off to Dorset. I had to go and see the Mother-in-Law, Graham consented to join me for part of the ride. The first couple of hours were fine as we took a route past Hungerford and headed towards Salisbury but then the temperature dropped and the heavens opened. Life became miserable, wet and cold. We received a shower every time a car passed and to add injury to insult, both of us rode into a huge pot hole concealed by a torrent of water and were catapulted off our bikes into a crowd of rather startled Salisbury pedestrians. Saturated, battered, bruised we dripped into a Costa coffee for cake, hot chocolate and frantic phone calls to come and be rescued. Not a great inaugural ride for the new bike which thankfully came out of it rather better than I!

As a rule we tend to try and get our cycling in early so it doesn’t impinge too much on family life so on Saturday and Sunday mornings we were joined by Chris and added to Friday’s miserable 60 miler with a couple of our regular 50 mile training rides to Stokenchurch and back. Much better weather and better speed, we averaged 15mph to Salisbury but improved to 16.9 and 17.3 respectively on the two Stokenchurch rides. A trip to Northampton for me and to Kent for Chris on Monday means that we’ve all covered between 150 and 200 miles this week. About right with a couple of months to go.