First decent length training ride this year (81 miles, tougher than I thought it'd be!).

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You all might be wondering why I've suddenly got so much time to post blogs. Well with one work project nearing an end and our own big project (more on that another time) crawling along snail like I find myself in limbo with a potentially very disjointed summer ahead. Pros: lots of time to ride and climb etc. Cons: money in very short supply. Oh well as the Howies ad once proclaimed 'Time not Cash'! (the sort of idealistic rhetoric normally spouted by someone earning a tidy wedge). Hey ho. 

And so I find myself needing to beat some fitness back into the old legs to allow me this summer of 'bliss'. As I mentioned in a previous post my winter training has been of the one step forward three steps back variety so the realisation has now dawned that I really need to get some long miles in to rebuild the old endurance.

So this morning I headed out to have a little look at the Chiltern Big Dipper sportive route for this year as I've (stupidly) signed up for it thinking it would help push the training on. Needless to say after only doing short rides through the winter it came very hard indeed. By the 65 mile point I decided that I was running low on energy and bailed out of the route, taking the short (still totalled 81 miles mind) route home. There's a fair bit of climbing (by my standards anyway) involved and I have to say it was a bit of a rude awakening as to where my fitness is at at the mo. This was magnified when on one climb an old dude breezed up past leaving me for dead but not before giving a cheery hello and passing comment on the length of the climb! My ego assures me he must be an ex pro who looks a lot older than he actually is. Git!

So by the time I got home I was good for nothing, just about managing to get myself into the bath where I sulked for a half hour or so contemplating just who or what had snuck in over those long winter months and stolen by bag of fitness. I WANT IT BACK!

I see some more long rides and plenty of pain just around the corner........

Dave.