Last night I had grand plans. Grand plans. I’d get up at ~8, have a bit of a lazy breakfast, nice cup of Joe, couple of slices of toast. Then I’d get into my kit that I’d got out the night before, and head out by 8.45 for two good hours on the bike.
Fast forward to this morning where I woke up at 8.45, rushed my cup of coffee, had toast but we’d run out of butter, and couldn’t find my heart rate strap … and had completely neglected to get any of my kit ready the night before. Whoops.
Whilst having my brew and toast I watched a livestream of Ed Laverack doing an insane >5w/kg average for >1 hour on an Alpe du Zwift race. That got me in the mood, and I have to say I had that on my mind during the early part of my workout.
I was out of the door by 10am, giving me all of 45 minutes on the bike.
So, the order of the day was to make those minutes count.
Still needing a warm up, I took the first five minutes fairly easy, and then decided the best use of my time was probably short, bursty efforts. The kind I’m allegedly good at, but I actually don’t like that much.
The first set of efforts were done around one of my favourite little loops – a set of Victorian era houses around Lower and Higher Bank road. It’s quiet and lovely round there, the sort of place I’d quite like to live in. However, the abundance of security cameras around each house tells me that crime is high there. You can’t have everything.
During those first efforts, I had to stop three times for cars. The first, a Royal Mail van who decided you don’t need to stop at T-junctions on a Sunday morning. And then a Tesla reversing out into the road without looking, and finally a BMW… which is probably just normal for BMW drivers. The road is theirs, after all.
That gave me pause for thought.
Maybe doing efforts on ‘side streets’ was a bad idea. So I went on to the main roads, and the wider Moor Park Boulevard for my second set. I have to say, I was hating my life by this point. But it was punishment, in a way, for being so lazy.
After those I decided hills might be fun. So into Preston town centre I went, chasing a couple of short, punchy efforts I know of.
Whilst in town I spotted this little gem:
Fairly sure that’s not an official Chick-fil-A franchise.
I had to double check with their website… on the spelling, mainly. Found this picture whilst there:
Honestly, why even bother with a mask if you aren’t covering your nose? I see this all over.
Right, anyway, that’s off topic.
So yeah, after this I was rapidly running out of time. Homeward bound, I got a soaking for my troubles.
Overall then, not quite the ride I had in mind today.
What I wanted to do was head out past Penwortham and loop back down some country lanes I’ve never explored before. It was wet out, so I got a soaking and all filthy. And I still need to clean the bike off.
Maybe next week will be nicer? Maybe then I can do the route I had in mind. However, I’m not so sure. If anything, the weather is supposed to be getting worse now for a while. Also, we have the Tour de Zwift to get involved with, starting tomorrow, I believe. So maybe I’ll be knackered. Knackered, but on a fairly clean bike.
