Been off the bike for nine days. And for the last seven of them I’ve been massively over eating. Went on my holidays to Tenerife, lovely time had by all. One day I clocked my days activities on Strava just to see:
Fantastic, right?
Well, no. I was definitely eating >2,000 calories at every meal. Three times a day. So that’s still a stupidly large over intake.
No big deal though. It is, after all, a holiday.
Now, some quick maths – because who doesn’t love maths? That’s right, no one.
Let’s say 1500 calories burned walking, and 6000 calories intake. Multiply that out over six days (let’s discount arrival and leaving because airports are tiring), so 4500 * 6 = 27,000 calories too many.
Whoops.
OK, so damage known, that works out at … well, at least 27 rides at 1,000 calories to burn that all off.
I’m sure that’s not how ‘it works’, but since when has this ever been a scientifically accurate blog? Not since day one. And I have no desires to change that.
Anyway, with that kind of in mind (I won’t pretend to have done the maths until just now, and that 27,000 figure made my eyebrows raise significantly) I did go out to do a longer-ish ride today.
What does that mean? Well, whilst away I think walking around in flip flops has not been good to my right knee. Always the more problematic of the two. So I wanted to do exercise today but not go crazy. Basically, no hard climbing. Kinda failed on that, but in a good way – because whilst I detoured down a road I’ve never been before (and it turned out to be a decent climb), I paced it fairly well and also gained a new addition to my route repertoire.
I went out on a circuit I’ve done before, knowing it would be at least 30km. If I kept on the loop it would take me back home at 30km, but I’d have the option of veering off at Longridge to do some hills or whatever, if the mood took.
Once out, I was enjoying myself. I’d messed up my layers. It was way warmer than expected and I’d foolishly gone out in long sleeves – both base layer and jersey. No options there. All I took was a full water bottle – no food. That was my other big mistake. If I’d had some sweets or a banana or something, I’m sure I’d have hit another climb before heading home.
However, I decided why not do ~40km and not over do it, with the full intention of getting in more of the same tomorrow, Friday, and over the weekend. I’d even quite like to do some Zwifting, but the weather looks lovely and so if I can get out into the countryside the turbo is left with a difficult battle to win.
Generally though, just super happy to have found a couple of small but sufficient climbs.
