Taking it easy (well, easier anyway)

After last week’s heavier load, my plans for this week included a lower mileage, especially at the weekend, which conveniently coincided with my parents coming to stay. Knowing this, I’d planned to extend my commute home to take in some longer rides in the evening. But trying this out on Monday evening, I quickly realised that this wasn’t going to be a particularly clever thing to do. Large potholes left by the winter weather and lack of light does not make a happy marriage for a cyclist on thin road tyres. My light strategy is to be seen, rather than to see, so my flashing lights don’t give a great view of the road in the dark – ok when most of my commute is lit by street lights, not so good when elsewhere. Next week may be better for evening rides, given the change to British Summer Time which means it’s lighter later. But until then it wasn’t worth the risk. The potholes, unless really deep, aren’t really the main problem – what I think is more dangerous are the large, long cracks that have appeared, running in the direction of the traffic – get your front wheel stuck in one of those and it’s almost guaranteed to throw you off your bike and onto the hard black stuff. And the other major hazard I’ve found is the increased amount of gravel on the road that’s come out of the potholes, particularly hazardous when cornering. I might be coming across as a bit soft here, but I’m determined to make the start line of the Tour if nothing else.

Psychologically, I find it incredibly hard to have a lighter training week. My inclination is to keep building the miles, in the belief that more is best. But all the training manuals state that you need to build in recovery time to let your body adjust to the increased workload asked of it in previous weeks. So, I have to accept that a recovery week is a physically necessity every once in a while, however frustrating it is to hold back when your legs are feeling good. It doesn’t feel natural, whatever the experts say! Although most of my illness or injury usually follows periods of increased training, so there must be some truth in it I suppose.

In the end, I managed to squeeze in a quick ride out to Box Hill and back on Sunday afternoon, getting home just before the rain arrived luckily. I was joined by Jake, a friend of Clare’s, for the ride. Jake has been seriously bitten by the cycling bug, has become ridiculously keen in a very short space of time and is now signing up to ride the entire Tour de Force, having previously planned to ride only a few stages between the Alps and Pyrenees. As such, he issues a constant stream of questions on kit, preparation, training, technique, etc in the mistaken belief that I possess sufficient expertise to answer them – although I’m more than happy to give my tuppence-worth. However, I am in the unfortunate position to have experienced the discomfort needed to fully answer his question about whether he needs chamois cream…nasty business, details best kept between cyclists. The ride home from Box Hill was fun – mostly downhill, mostly downwind, mostly good roads, and therefore mostly high speed. And the views from the top of Box Hill were amazing, looking South over Surrey, crystal clear at around 4.30pm, unlike the shroud of mist or haze that usually greets me on my typical early morning rides out there.

This week in the year is one of those tantalising glimpses of what might be, just before the prize is ripped from your grasp, forcing another month’s wait. I’m talking about my morning commute, which I have been doing in the dark since the end of August, through the misery of winter’s grip. In the last week of March, with a cloudless sky, I can ride to work without any lights – I can’t explain what joy that brings and what a difference that makes to the start of the day. But just when I get to that watershed moment, it gets taken away by the change to British Summer Time and I am once again plunged into darkness for another month (daylight creeps forward by 2 minutes every day – I know, I look at this too closely).

A tougher week of training awaits me next week…


Weekly totals
Commute – 100 miles
Other rides – 48 miles

Funds raised to date £1528.