Cycling #3

Hot on the heels of my successful cycling excursion on Thursday, I was keen to go out again.  So after spending Saturday morning in bed watching the Women's Tri at the Olympics (in one word - wow!) we got ready to go out again.  This time our destination was Thame, 17 miles away, and therefore a little bit further than the two previous jaunts of 12 and 14 miles away.

I am sure that the extra distance would have been manageable had the ride been flat like the first two rides that I've done.  However it wasn't.  There was a big hill that I was just glad that I didn't have to go down which required a lot of grunting to go up as well as a small narrow hill which I froze in the middle of and had to walk down.

We stopped in Thame and although I was just feeling sick and tired I knew that I would need to eat something in order to make it back so I forced down some gluten free pancakes with maple syrup which were probably just about right - low on the fibre so easy to digest and maximum carbs.  After a quick look in the Oxfam bookshop in the town and a purchase of the weekend newspaper, it was time to head back again.  Mr W had decided on a slightly flatter route for the return which had a shorter option (by about a mile) and a longer option.  Unfortunately for me he chose the shorter option, seeing that I was tired, but failed to consider that this was along a busy A road with lots of cars going past at 50-60mph.  200m in I panicked and froze and we had to go back to do the longer option, with me in floods of tears from being so scared and feeling so pathetic.

From then on it got worse.  My back muscles are still not accustomed to riding this bike so I needed to get off every 2 miles to stretch it out.  Then I hit complete meltdown 7 miles from home. Mr W informed me that it would take an hour to go home and get the car to come and fetch me. Decide to plod on as I can't bear the thought of sitting by the side of the road by myself for so long. Mixture of walking and cycling. It can't get worse?! It can...it then starts raining. Mr W offers me his showerproof. It isn't. I cry some more and swear a lot. Bike is now smothered in mud. Padded cycling shorts are absolutely sodden, must be like wearing a wet nappy. Two miles from home I cheer up as we are definitely in walking distance. Peddle hard only to lose Mr W who is worn out by it all and needs a carb gel to get him home.  Resume alternate walking and riding for final mile and finally get home.


So what went wrong?  In the cold light of day it's obvious that I can increase distance quite easily over the flat, but if I want to practise hills I will need to do a short ride.  Maybe that's something I could go out and tackle for an hour on an evening?  It makes me a little nervous of the 40mile sportive I've entered on the 2nd September as will be covering some of the same roads as yesterday AND a longer distance and I don't think there will be gluten free pancakes with maple syrup halfway round.  We'll see.


For now, I need to focus on my swimming with the 14k 2 weeks today.  It's been a rubbish week in swimming terms as I've only clocked 10.2 km.  I hope that resting up in front of the Olympics (synchro!) this afternoon will prepare me for a week of endurance swimming before an easy week before the event.  The bike, now cleaned, will stay quietly in the back room for now.