A Training Ride for my Upcoming 100 mile Rides

On 13 July my son and I are riding the Dynamic Rides 100 (link) and I'm doing the Ride London 2014 in August. I have not ridden 100 miles for quite a long time 2012 although I have done a lot of 80 mile rides in the last few years. I have no issues riding the London route - its pretty flat, but the Dynamic Rides is likely to be a bit more challenging I think, based on the other Mac Rides that I have ridden - its included Saintbury Hill for example which is a reasonable slog. Given that the Dynamic Rides event is only 4 weeks away I felt that I really needed to push up the mileage - mainly to get used to sitting on a bike for 6 hours or so again, and also getting the food and drink better over the ride so that I still felt OK at the end. Finally I really wanted to get more time in the sun as during the Parkinsons ride I was feeling a little too much sun by the end. A 100 mile ride is more of a whole day and if the sun is too strong it can be unpleasant.

So this weekend I decided to go for another 80mile ride and go down to Evesham, loop back and do enough miles to get the 80 (there was another carrot in that this would complete the June Strava challenge as well. The weather was a bit overcast, but there was a reasonable tail wind and the pace was really high down to Evesham - in fact I had 19.7mph average by the time I got to the bridge over the river. However after riding up the pedestrianised section to get heading back I was turned right into the wind and realised at the point that there was no chance of keeping anything like that pace home - especially as its uphill back. It was a drag but I felt that despite this I was able to keep some level of pace. At Astwood Bank I turned off to go up to The Lickeys. My legs were start to feel it but I was still able to keep a reasonable pace. The flat run from Beoley to Hockley Heath was OK - 20mph cruise - and that sort of pace is useful to bring the overall average up. 

Back at home I was very pleased - 86miles, 18.2mph average, 4:44 ride time. I had thought of doing another few miles to do a hundred but the high pace that I was pleased with was not really doing me any favours by then - and I wanted to be home for other things for the day. 

The only downside was that it stayed overcast for the whole time, so no benefit for the time in the sun objective! But I felt much better prepared for a 100 miler

Here's the Strava data:

Longest Ride of the Year so far

For Sunday 19 May Noel suggested that we ride to Evesham. Its quite a long round trip for us ~65 miles or so so almost 4 hours on a slow day. I asked that we start at 8.30 so I was not too late home - my wife is still recuperating and disappearing all morning is not something I want to be doing too often at the moment.

Come 8.30 Sunday the weather was bright sunshine with almost no wind. It was not quite warm enough that early for short sleeves so I wore my arm warmers with the aim of not needing them for too long. They came off at Great Alne.

Our route to Evesham from Solihull is Earlswood, Tanworth In Arden, Ullenhall, Little Alne, Great Alne, Alcester, Arrow, Bidford on Avon, Cleeve Prior and then Evesham. The return leg is Harvington, Dunnington, Cookhill, Astwood Bank and then Tardebigge, Alvechurch and Wythall.

The route is here:


Evesham is at 35 miles and is down hill all the way:

Unfortunately what goes down must go up and the drag back is tiring - especially as an imperceptible tailwind became a noticeable headwind back.

Noel's "plod" down was at a much higher pace than I had expected and we had 18.4mph by the time we got to Evesham. As Noel set the pace down I had had quite a sheltered ride so took my turn at the front for the return run. The first small climb out of Evesham was far tougher than I had expected and I knew then that we were in for a tough ride. Evesham to Astwood Bank is a long drag almost always with an incline and is very tiring. The other problem is that from Astwood Bank there is no easy way back without a noticeable climb somewhere. I managed to keep an adequate pace back at ~16-17mph to Astwood Bank but we both dropped the pace off to Scarfield Hill, and I spent several miles in the little (wimp) front ring to take the load off my legs around Ham Green and Elcocks Brook and save some energy for Weatheroak Hill. Weatheroak Hill proved to be as hard as ever after ~60 miles, but knowing that that this was the last climb once we crested the top we got some pace in back home.

This was the longest ride this year - I had not done more than 50 miles so far and I really felt it for the last 10-15 miles and for a few hours afterwards. At 133.3 miles for the week it is also (just) the highest mileage for a week this year as well, so a reasonable achievement.

This year has proven to nothing like the previous 3 years mileage - I am about 500 miles down compared to these years, but given the weather and my wife's illness I have not done badly. I think that 5000 miles this year will be a very hard challenge unless we have an excellent summer and mild and dry autumn and winter. We'll have to see.

Update 15 May 2012

Good ride on Sunday - 68 mile run down to Evesham with Noel. Average of 16.6mph so pretty good. It was quite windy and although we shared the pace setting by about 45 miles I was really feeling it, although I perked up a bit at around 55 miles, so I think some food had kicked in. The drag back from Evesham can be hard work as its "uphill" most of the way - nothing too steep or long but always uphill. Here's the ride:

 

I signed myself and Noel up for the Wheel Heroes 100 miler Sportive from the race course at Stratford on Avon for the 27 May. We did it last year and it was pretty good. Good route down to some of the Cotswolds, 4 good (free) feed stations, and well organised. Last year I cruised it and Noel really struggled - again it was windy although he got his own back later in the year when I struggled on the Shakespeare 100 in September. I'm looking forward to it although have not got any where near 100 miles yet this year. Based on the weekend just gone I need to keep the miles down in the preceding week.

I am also doing the Pedal for Parkinsons (picture of me on the website!) ride again (also from Stratford race course) on 10 June. Last year I cycled down, rode the ride and "won". One of my sons has surprisingly volunteered to do it with me this year although he'll do the 20 mile route vs. me doing the 60 mile route. I'm planning to ride down again this year but depends on the weather I think. Let's hope the weather is OK for that as well. My dad has Parkinsons so its a small way to do something that I'd do anyway.

Bad news - down to only 4 KOM - a couple of people have uploaded rides from last year and stolen 3 or 4 off me. Bah!

Another brief update.

After 3 commutes at the end of March I added in another ride on Sunday (1 April) with Noel. We went down to Evesham which is normally a good 60+ mile round trip. Weather was OK (shorts) but needed a few layers on for the first few hours. Noel & I took reasonable turns at the front and as a result got down to Evesham and back to Astwood Bank at about 17.4mph average which was very pleasing. At that point I wanted to detour through to Tardebigge and on and Noel had had enough, so we split at that point. I pressed on and added a few extra Strava segments to the route and despite doing a total of 72.9 miles for the morning still got the average at 17.1. The additional segments were the "Sheltwood Stretcher" (a drag over a mile or so) and Icknield Street Climb, and on both of these set the 2nd fastest time overall, so was well pleased.

Didn't get a great deal of chance for riding to work the week commencing 4 April other than the Friday (we are heathens and work on Good Friday) which was a bitterly cold morning (-4Deg C on my Garmin 800).

However the weather perked up on the Saturday and I went out for a blast to get as many segments as possible in the afternoon. Did a 30 mile loop at 19mph and made a number of improvements on a 4-5 segments and felt pretty good as well. Despite seeing strong signs of improved pace I can see KOM slipping away now as more people are signing on and its getting pretty competitive out there - sometimes the KOM don't stand for more than 12-24hrs when the weather is good at the weekend and there are a few ((Box Trees Lane, Kineton Lane, Pool Head Lane etc) where the competition is intense. Kineton Lane has seen a drop if about 20 seconds of time over the past 2 weeks with 4-5 people holding the KOM.

Finally, as I am off on holiday the week after Easter I have been nipping out in some of the mornings for some miles. On 11 April I decided to do some hill repeats and went over to Rose Hill with the intention to do at least 2. The first ascent was hard, but I felt OK afterwards and went to a 2nd loop, which actually seemed to hurt less. On completing that 2nd loop I decided to go for a 3rd loop and this was no worse that the 2nd. I felt I could have done a 4th loop, but probably would have struggled a lot on the way home so glad I didn't. The first ascent was 3:45 and the second and third were both 3:56. The 3:45 was my 2nd fastest time ever and the fact that the next 2 ascents were the same time was excellent for me. I think that I should try and push a lot harder on this hill now.

I think that all the miles slogged out over the Winter are starting to pay off. Whilst my main target this year is 5000 miles again, I also want to increase the average speed to be generally 18mph for most rides up to 60-70 miles. There's no structure to this or specific plan but I believe it will be possible on a couple of days - weather and overall distance dependant and probably needing at least another person to share the time at the front. Les hope so. I can do it over 20-25 miles so don't see why it's impossible over a longer distance.