Each week I try to review and reflect on my previous week on the bike. This allows me to see how my fitness and ability is progressing on a wider timescale than day to day. For previous weekly reviews please click here.
This week consisted of four rides, all of which were outdoors. The week started with my second Covid jab on the Monday, and that put paid to any riding until later in the week. As such I’m amazed I managed to beat the 100km riding goal this week… but it came at a cost.
The rides this week were as follows:
- Thursday – Avoid The Cow Spray
- Friday – Friday Night Live
- Saturday – Curry In A Hurry
- Sunday – Finish Him
As above, I got my second Covid jab on the Monday, and what with it giving me a horrendous headache and a very sore arm, it was Thursday afternoon before I felt good enough to get on the bike and make up for the lost time.
Fortunately, the nice weather held out and I managed to get outdoors to kick start the week. With the late start, I wasn’t expecting to beat the 100km riding goal this week, so on Thursday I went out and did the best I could in the time I had available. It was a nice ride, but nothing to write home about.
Lately I’ve taken to riding to Longridge on Fridays after work. It’s a decent loop, has some little punch climbs, long flats, has wide roads, and is generally not too busy in terms of road traffic. Plus, when it’s sunny it’s got some lovely views to enjoy. So I repeated that on Friday and enjoyed that ride very much.
Come Saturday and I was feeling adventerous.
With the kids off school all week on Covid isolation, I was blocked from going visiting my family so had extra time to spend on the bike. I decided to head back up towards Longridge, aiming to take in one of the harder climbs in my local area – the Ribchester village to Jeffrey Hill summit climb.
It’s a category 3 effort, and I’m not sure if I’ve done that climb in full before. Maybe I have. I can’t remember. I do remember coming down that way a few weeks back, which was ear chillingly cold fun.
When I looked at my time, after the ride, and what I wrote about in that blog post, I realised much later that I’d made a bit of a mistake. Yes, my time wasn’t great, but it wasn’t >20 minutes as I thought it was at the time. I had stopped at the bottom of the climb to have a drink, blow my nose, and generally prep before making my way up. As I’d already crossed the start line for the segment, my time was skewed massively.
Excuses, excuses. Anyway, I did track the climb from the Garmin and found out l had done this in 18 minutes 12 seconds, not the ~24 minutes reported. So not as bad as it seemed, but still, far from world record pace.
The other thing I did this week was more anaerobic efforts.
This is something I know I do not do enough of. Between sprint type stuff and out of the saddle riding, these are two areas I could probably get some very quick wins in, if I focused on them.
However, I think in pushing myself with the sprints and the long climb this week, whilst coming off the back of that Covid jab, I did myself no favours. And as such I ended up being very poorly on the Sunday night, which meant missing work today (the Monday) as I sit writing this. Fortunately I’m feeling a bit better – well enough to write this – but not perfect.
As such I don’t know what my week ahead is going to look like.
As above, I don’t want to set any big goals this week. Recovering from illness is the big one, but it’s not bike related.
I have two weeks left now until the 100km ride. I’m feeling good about that. No concerns. I think I have all the stuff I need to complete this one without too many issues. If anything, I guess it would make sense to do one longer ride – 50-75km before then – but I won’t kill myself to get there.
Other than that, it’s all about recovery for now.