Oh sweet Lord have mercy, is it hot.
But fortunately, at 7.15 this morning, it wasn’t as hot. I mean, it was still fairly hot. Around 17 or 18c, pretty much like a nice weeknight. Except… you know, early in the morning. Madness.
After a rather bizarre dream about sharing a swimming pool changing room with Geraint Thomas and Alex Dowsett (mostly Dowsett shouting at Geraint about hair problems), I suddenly woke up with a start at 6.55, a full five minutes before my alarm was due to wake me.
Keen, that.
The plan today was to get in a 30km loop, not too steep, but I knew up front I’d have pretty much all up hill until about 17.6km, and then after that it was largely back down hill. The idea here being that it would take me the majority of the time to do the first “half”, and then the second half would go much quicker.
The Garmin had me down as this one taking about 1:15, so to come in at 1:08 was decent. Though as I’ve basically gone pretty hard (by my standards) over the last two rides, tomorrow I do need to take this into consideration and rein it in somewhat.
Speaking of tomorrow, I’m not sure what to do in terms of route.
I’m trying to find something a bit flatter, but ideally off the main roads. They were busy this morning, even at 7.20am.
Exploring the back roads is always fun – and today was my second time down the appropriately named Ford Lane, with this lovely little stream running right through the road as it dips and then ascends back up. A bit of wet legs was quite refreshing on a hot morning.
Getting up early – 7am – is something I am firmly out of the habit of.
It wasn’t that long ago that I was doing 6am starts and driving to Wigan. I’d have been at my desk by 7am. Thank God and all the other deities that hell is over with. Not that I resent work, or getting up early… just that particular job.
Anyway, decently pleased with my performance both today and yesterday. It’s easier to get into it when you’re in the mood. And I was in the mood today. I was looking forward to it, and when I got out into the countryside I was rewarded with lovely quite, warm open roads and such blissful peace and quiet to do my riding that it all felt very agreeable indeed.
Even by 8am it was starting to get warm enough that it felt like a summer’s evening.
There were plenty of cyclists out on the open roads – though I saw none out in the countryside. I pretty much had it all to myself. On the roads though I saw several pairs, and even a road going TT pedaller. Nice.
Who knows what I’ll see tomorrow.
So all in, happy with the week’s progress. Unfortunately my left foot is still sore, and I had expected it to be pretty much recovered by tomorrow – but that doesn’t seem to be looking likely. As such the Zwift running work will likely get pushed back to rainy Friday.
I’m happy enough overall with the week’s progress both on and off the bike so far. The only downside? These weeks are flying by. Scary stuff. Still, the sooner this bloody lockdown is done with, the sooner the UK economy kicks back off, the sooner I might find some paid work. That’d be a treat, eh? Until then, cycling continues. Deep joy.
