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Monday 10 September 2007

Southern Sportive

Great Cyclo Sportive ride over the South Downs on a beautiful sunny day in early September.
Set off at 8am to ride 155k over some hard hills and undulating roads. What I did find is the route wasn't always clear, a great many riders got lost! I actually rode 158km. The GPS route I downloaded from the web and uploaded to my Garmin 305 wasn't exactly right either! When done 156km I found out I'd taken a wrong turn to the finish, me and many other riders!! They ran out of water on the last aid station and I had to wait 15 minutes before they turned up with more, and then I found myself at the back of the queue! I am far too polite! The only problem with their timing checkpoints is that once you 'tag in' the clock keeps running, so when you are refilling your water bottles and picking up some food for on the go your time is ticking away! The second aid station came at the wrong time, as I was flying like an express train after 83km, just found my legs and was pulling along a group of riders who were all hanging on at 26mph into a headwind on a (one of hardly any)flat section. I felt like I could have ridden like that for hours! Then the break came and when I got on my bike I'd really lost my momentum and it took me a few km to get back into a rhythm.
But got my nutrition for the day spot on, and it was a lot. 3 bottles psp22, 6 bottles Go electrolyte(weak solution). 2 power bar Ride, 2 caffeine power bars. 5 pieces flapjack, 1 banana. 2 caffeine power bar gels in a small bottle mixed with a bit of water.
The last 10 miles I remembered about the power gel mix as I was worried I had nothing left for the ride in! It really made a big difference and I powered home averaging 38kph for the last 10 miles.
Overall time 5 hours 31. Distance 158km. Ave speed 28.6 kph
Great fun, met some really nice people along the ride, and burned off 7431 calories. Legs were tired after 6118 feet of climbing!! But like I said to Tracey afterwards I could have gone for a run!
Legs ok today, gentle ride into work, could not ride with any power at all and just spun in. Recovery swim at lunch which was great, as new stroke is feeling better and I swam one of my quickest 400m yet and I was not swimming with any effort at all! Looking good!
Biked home and having a rest. Up for swimming tomorrow early and have just signed up for Littledown triathlon on Sunday. It's a sprint tri, one of the Fast Twitch ones, run by concept sport. 400m swim, 16 mile bike and 4 mile run. I will be putting my foot down in an all out effort to see how hard I can go, to really push through the mental barrier that is stopping me from exerting myself!

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