Exactly four weeks from now it will all be over, whatever happens. The countdown has moved from weeks to days and the event now feels incredibly close...... 27 days and counting.
The weather over the last few weeks has aided my race preparation in a couple of ways.
The rather windy end to the month of May meant that most training rides consisted of a healthy does of strong headwinds. I have managed to persuade myself that this is not a bad substitute for ridiculous mountain passes given Wiltshire’s lack of 2,000m peaks. A 50 mile ride into strong south westerly head winds nearly all the way to my parents house a couple of weeks back was probably the most significant training session of this period. ... I also managed to find 1000m of climbing on this route, which while not really alpinesque, when combined with the wind made me feel like I was trying despite the awful weather... the rain made it hard to see anything and my phone also drowned so it was not quite the ride I had originally envisaged in late May. My just rewards after a 3 hour + battle against the elements was a large slice of home-made chicken pie and a warm bath.
The return of warm sunny weather last week helped me develop a more appropriate cyclists tan to help me at least look the part in amongst the French & Italian riders who will be making up the majority of the field four weeks from now. While my tan may be more ‘farmers’ than Mediterranean, my arms and head are really quite brown. My legs, however, still remain firmly planted in the dulux range of whites. A week of exposure may have moved them on from pure brilliant white, to white with a hint of pink but they are still quite offensive (and perhaps even downright dangerous) to other road users. Hopefully we will continue to see fine weather in the UK over the next few weeks so I can at least work on the colour if not the performance of my legs.As the “one month to go” point arrived, I decided to celebrate it with a decent length ride dropping on and off the ridge line of the Cotswolds encompassing three climbs that I’ve been promising to do since my arrival:-
1. From Wickwar back onto the ridge via Wotton-Under-Edge (5km, 175m ascent, 3.5% ave, steepest point 14%)
2. Crawley Hill (appropriately named) out of Uley back onto the ridge (2.7km, 155m ascent, 5.7% ave, steepest point 15%)
3. “The W” from Nailsworth onto Minchenhampton Common (2.3km, 153m ascent, 6.7% ave, steepest point 16%)
Following this ride, Maurice is struggling to gauge my current level of preparedness. While I have made significant improvements over the last six months – completing the 60 miles and 1250m of climbing in this ride at an average pace of 16mph, I wonder whether this is really going to be good enough in a few week’s time. The weather was probably 10 degrees cooler than France in July will be and the total ascent achieved was just a smidgeon more than the final climb up Alpe d’Huez....
This is enough to focus on training over the next few weeks with the Peak 100 on 19th June – my final check on long-haul sportives. Success here will be a silver medal time.....
The stats for the last 4 weeks look OK, if not perfect.....
Target Actual
Ave weekly mileage 125 123
Ave wkly ride time 8 hrs 7 ¾ hrs
Ave weekly ascent 2,500m 2,360m
..... hopefully this, plus the next two weeks will prove enough.......
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