Metric Century - DONE!

Total Distance 2008: 305.7m
Longest ride: 66.9m

I made my third attempt at the metric century on Wednesday. The weather was dry-ish but fairly breezy; hardly perfect conditions but the best I'd had on a Wednesday so far this year. I dropped the little ones at nursery - my two year old was not happy and I had the same tugging feelings that I used to get when I dropped him off en route to work. Going out cycling isn't supposed to feel like work! Twenty minutes later I was out on the road.

After a couple of hours, the back of my left leg was starting to get sore so I lowered my saddle a couple of mm's. I'd recently broken the seat clamp and had obviously put the saddle two high when I fitted the new one. (I'm a bit fussy about my seat height - too high and I get pain behind my left leg, two low and I get pain in front of my right knee - I really must take all the measurements of the bike so I don't make the same mistake again).

I made stops at around the hour and two hour mark to eat my banana and Nutrigrain and after about 3 hours I was on the look out for a village bakery to get my next feed. I went through loads of country villages but there were no shops of any description, except for the one selling angling worms. Eventually, I came to Middlewich and "Rob's Fish and Chips" appeared in the distance like some kind of oasis. It seemed a good idea so I stopped for a small cone of chips. I got a few strange looks - dressed head to toe in lycra and scoffing chips. After finishing, I got back on the bike and found that my left leg had turned to wood. I couldn't move it, couldn't bend it without pain, couldn't put any pressure onto the pedal. I stopped and spent about 10 minutes stretching and squatting to get things working again. I really wasn't sure that I'd finish the 20 remaining miles home. It was really sore! I got back on and took things quite easy at first. I found that if I stopped pedalling, it seized up again. So, I just kept pedalling and of course, I did make it home.

I just about made it to school on time to get the kids and then came home for a bath. Within a few minutes of getting out, I was heaving. I'm not sure what happened - whether it was the biggest bonk of my life or if I'd succumbed to a bug - but I was really ill for the next 24 hours. I don't think I ate enough and then ate something that probably wasn't all that great for me. I need to pay a bit more attention to what I eat on these longer rides. It's hard finding the right balance of eating enough to avoid the bonk but little enough to keep losing weight.

I'm still feeling a bit low and have taken a couple of days off the bike. My eldest was sick last night so it's looking like a bug is more likely. That's a bit of a relief to be honest, as I was really starting to think that I'm just not up to it.

Puncture!

It had to happen sooner or later didn't it?
I made my second attempt at completing a metric century on Wednesday. The weather was really awful; cold, windy, hard rain and lots of surface water. For the first seven miles of the ride there was an internal dialogue going on between the angelic me and the lazy me - lazy voice wanted me to cut the ride short: a) because the conditions were really bad, b) because my knee was hurting a bit, c) because the garmin wasn't telling me when to turn and I was relying on the map view which isn't quite as good as getting an alert before turning. The angelic voice was winning the debate and I was determined to carry on. A Jag flew past me on a country lane near to tatton park and I momentarily lost a bit of concentration and went through quite a deep puddle that I might otherwise have avoided. The puddle was covering a huge hole in the road and I hit it hard. Within seconds I could see that the tyre was flat and so with much howling and swearing I got off. The road is very narrow with no path so I walked a few hundred metres to a driveway and set about my task. I have put one tyre on before in my life - the turbo training tyre on the turbo bike - and that took me well over an hour! Fortuntely, the tyre on my bike was much easier to work with - it came off easily and within 15 minutes, I had it fixed. I felt really tough, working on my bike at the side of the road with the rain lashing down, hands covered in filth etc. The sensible voice piped up at this point and said that I should go home and have a bath and who was I to argue with that?

Feeling a bit crap again today - probably through getting cold in the rain - so missed my turbo session. Will do it tomorrow and will aim to complete the metric century at the weekend. I can't fail the metric century challenge in January for gods sake!

Making progress

Year to date (10th Jan)

Total Miles: 116

Longest Ride: 53miles (in very windy conditions)

Weight Loss: 7lb (that was easy though as I just had to stop eating sausages in bacon)

I've entered a Metric Century A Month challenge on the BikeRadar forum and had planned Wednesday's ride to be my first of the year. I started the ride cycling into the wind and was going so slowly that I knew I wasn't going to be able to complete the loop and get back in time to collect the children from school and nursery. I managed 53 miles though - not bad going in those conditions. I'm still feeling a bit sluggish and struggle to go anywhere near the pace I was managing in summer. I hope this is normal for this time of year.

I had a late christmas present - a Garmin Edge 305 - a marvelous gadget which is set to really change my rides. I no longer have to make map reading stops as my Garmin tells me when I've got to turn. It's so cool - I see the junction on the screen and then this little triangle appears (me on my bike) and the triangle pootles along and turns. It also shows me all kinds of useful data which I can use to analyse my progress. One fabulous bit of information is Gradient - now I know what 7% actually looks like. It doesn't feel all that steep but the thought of 20km of 7% is quite intimidating. Can I actually do this??

Colin went out for a ride at the weekend - 6 miles or so around the town. I am forcing him out tomorrow and Sunday for at least 20 miles each day.

Happy New Year

Targets for the week:

Longest ride - 62 miles

Total mileage - 120 miles

Weight loss - 3lb

mmmmmm....... I already don't think I'm going to manage the mileage for this week. I'm still suffering from a nasty bug - I've got a bit of a temperature, clammy and coughing lots. I'm definitely improving but the 30 miler I had planned for this first day of the year had to be cancelled. I'm itching to get out because I have a new gadget to help with training - a Garmin Edge 305. It's all set up and many routes are planned in Memory Map but I'm just not up to cycling. I wanted to try the ladies club run on Saturday but it might not be the best idea as a first run out after a layoff.

I watched the "Road to Hautacam" DVD which I ordered in November. It looks pretty steep around La Mongie but otherwise the TV pictures showed the climbs to be deceptively gentle - I know that they won't be in reality. Something which really stuck in my mind is that there are no crash barriers on the descent of the Tourmalet.