This morning I managed to get up early again – though not quite as eagerly – and get out and on to the roads before the mercury shot back up towards 29c for the day. This weather these last two days has been nutty.
Rain ahoy tomorrow, and for the foreseeable actually, so it was doubly important to get in some fresh air riding whilst I still can.
The aim today was to keep things steady. I’d planned out a route covering approximately 30km, but most importantly it was as flat as I could find, within the bounds of my local area. No hills required.
I’d planned to go at, or as close to 200w as I could, which works out at about 3w/kg. I was hoping to sit around that figure for the entire ride. And by and large, I managed to do this. Give or take a traffic light or two.
Perhaps the nicest part of this ride was finding this super long, flat, smooth piece of tarmac with a lovely view of the fells off in the distance. Unfortunately the camera doesn’t do it justice.
You can see from the map view up above, this road in the long straight section in between Wharles and Inskip on the top left. I’m fairly sure I’ve been down this road once before in my life, but it was a very long time ago.
Much like yesterday morning, most of the ride was kept off the busy main roads – and they are getting much busier at this point. Very noticeably so.
Due to a road closure on my planned route, I ended up criss-crossing the M55 motorway three times during this ride, and I can report traffic levels aren’t quite back to what they were, but they are sure as heck well on their way.
I’ve very much enjoyed these two morning outdoor rides, and would quite happily repeat both again. I’m thinking of using the Garmin Connect ‘reverse’ feature and doing them both backwards, whenever the weather next suits.
One thing I’ve tried to do both yesterday and today is get to 10km within 20 minutes. It’s surprisingly hard to do out on the open roads, and even today on the flat I was coming up quite short. This, again, leads me to question the metrics and mileage achieved via the online programs.
With regards to Zwift, my foot still isn’t great so no running has been completed yet this week. I’m now thinking Saturday at the earliest.
I’m taking tomorrow as a well earned rest day.
And at this point my Zwift subscription has auto-renewed so I might see if there’s another Pride Ride on this Saturday and have a go at that for something a little less intense.
I’ve heard Zwift have some new routes coming very shortly, so that’s quite interesting too.
Lastly, I want to try GTA 5 Bike mod. So I’ll see how easy that is to get into.
But not today. Today it’s much too hot, so I’m off for an ice cream. Ciao ciao.
