So, the week of training is over. 330 miles in 7 days, I think I can safely say that's the most I've done in one week. The only problem is that will only amount to 2.5 days of Land's End to John O'Groats! It ended up being slightly shorter than planned mainly due to the weather not being particularly inviting. It also got to the point where I started wondering what benefit I was getting from just churning out the miles.
Saturday was actually quite a nice day weather wise and I got out in the morning for a spin round Rivington and back. My legs had taken a bit of a battering over the first three days and felt really heavy on Friday's club run so I just took it easy on Saturday and used the ride as a bit of a recovery.
It seemed to do the trick as on Sunday I felt the best I've felt for a while on the bike, it was one of those days when you feel like your legs have endless energy. I ended up setting new personal bests up a couple local climbs without ever feeling like I was absolutely hammering it. Maybe watching Tom Boonen solo to victory from 50km out in Paris-Roubaix that afternoon provided a bit of motivation or maybe the night out on Saturday actually helped!The only regret I have was not going out earlier on Sunday and getting some more miles in, especially given the weather we had on Monday.
Given the choice of spending the day in front of bank holiday telly eating Easter eggs or riding my bike for 80 miles in the rain I know which I'd usually choose. And it was apparently the former that the majority of people chose given that I didn't see one other road cyclist out on their bike on Monday. I had to get the miles in however so out into the rain I went and it wasn't too bad a day until I was cycling back through Manchester after 70-odd miles.
Spending the amount of time I do cycling on the roads you get used to drivers getting annoyed when you hold them up for a couple of seconds. Usually this only amounts to a honking of their horn or a hurling of abuse from an open window. Monday was my first experience of a driver who not only did both of these things but also seemed to think that attempting to run a cyclist off the road is an appropriate course of action. Once the adrenalin has died down these incidents don't normally affect me but it depresses me that he saw fit to do this whilst he had two small children in the car with him. I'm also left annoyed that I didn't get his numberplate so I could report him.
That just left Tuesday for another short recovery ride and the week was done. I still feel like I need to do more preparation before the ride and I'm conscious that I've got less than four weeks to go. The next two weekends I will be packing the miles in with long back to back rides before taking it a bit easier before the LEJoG itself. I also have lots of planning to do in terms of finalising the route, booking the last couple of night's accommodation and sorting out my equipment I need. I best get cracking!
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