So, todays ride started as a rather cold one. The Garmin hit its lowest temperature at -3.7°C. As they say over home “it was Baltic”. It was little wonder that there was a much lower number of crazy souls ready to take on the Cotswolds roads and head out toward Windrush and the surrounding countryside. So, 3 Interz (Intermediate Group) and 3 FIGS (Fast intermediate Group) riders set off. Within 2 miles our band of merry men increased by 1. So, it was Figs 4 Interz 3 at this point. Along the roads we trundled taking any stretch of road with standing water extremely gingerly as the ice and black ice was evident and non us fancied taking a tumble.
Sadly, our group dropped by 1 after a seriously precarious section of ice and he headed back for the warmth of the coffee shop and then home. The rest of us carried on a while longer until another decided that he was heading for home and when we went left, he went straight. So, it was down to FIGS 3 Interz 2. At this point I am thinking please don’t ramp the effort up too high as I will be spat out the back quicker than two very quick things on quick street.
As we meandered our way taking a somewhat different route to the planned route for either of the two groups, it was at this point I learned a new word. Coddiwomple. Which means to keep moving forward confidently even when you are not quite sure where you are going. So, we were definitely Coddiwompling along today.
It was another day of the old legs not quite having the amount of energy I needed for some of the climbs and some of the slightly faster flat sections. The joys of working some silly shift patterns mid-week and not having time to recover from the upset sleep. Thankfully the other guys were absolute stars easing off when I got dropped on the flat section and waiting or going slowly at the tops of climbs, sometimes even hanging back to pace me back on to the group.
The moral of this story is to be more consistent in training and rest and recovery. So, it looks like more time to be spent in the pain cave during the week otherwise the fitness will stagnate and not improve. With 30 weeks left until the main event there is plenty of time to change things around and improve my level of completion. We shall see how the next few weeks go as the weather is likely to be more changeable and this may mean that the Turbo trainer gets more use than it has in the past.
Enjoy the fly though of todays ride and hopefully you will check again soon.
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