An early one

Sunday 17th April


Distance 55miles     Av Sp 17.3mph    Ascent ~4500ft


'Spring into the Dales' was an Audax starting in Hebden Bridge today that I had a slight glimmer of hope of attending as a few Rochdale Tri club guys were attending but the missus scuppered my plans and I had to renegotiate my cycling time. Instead I will be doing the 'Pendle Witches Vintage Velo' on Easter Sunday, weather permitting.

Part of the mediation process enabled an early morning ride just as long as I returned before baby woke up. Alarm set for 5.30am and thankfully everyone stayed asleep. Took me a while to set up my gear as it was scattered everywhere due to my TT yesterday. The sun was barely out and it was still quite cold outside. I tried to ram the left overs of last nights takeaway down my throat, succeeded but the stomach turning and a little worse for wear.

Set off and I could barely move. My heart rate took a while to raise above 100 but once in my stride there was no stopping me. Ok there were two huge mountains in the way, one know as Holmfirth Rd and the other Holme Moss summit. Wind was negligible when I set off but my general speed wasn't there and had to make do with what reserves I had. The first mountain was upon me and I was doing ok. Going easy and not going too slow. A roadie ahead made me put a little more effort in and I overtook by halfway. Not had an overtake for months. Stood up the rest of the way and increased the speed. The descent gave me a nice rest, but it didn't as I saw 2 roadies at a junction before the top and thought they were going the same direction so pedalled all the way downhill. Never looked back and didn't see them but I think they took the other route.

The second climb killed me. 4.5mph near the top was pitiful. No matter how hard I tried I just couldn't muster up any more to put down. My previous worst here was about 5.5mph with servere winds. Just needed to hit the top and I was virtually home and dry. I kinda chickened out when the big descent came. There are a couple of big bends but I'd say you could take them at 40mph. Im not keen at going downhill and kept hitting the brakes but I did stay above 30mph. The rest of the ride home was simple enough and didn't take too much out of me.

I used to do those big hills every Sunday last year and I am either out of practice or fatigued. Most likely the latter as my average heart rate was only 139 and getting over 145 was difficult.

Looking back at the Garmin Calendar I have ridden 10 consecutive days at a total of close to 400miles. Woahhhh.