Okay it’s midweek already, but nobody else has added anything, so I think it’s okay to post something about the weekend. 
The weekend just gone marked the end of the loading phase of my TB3 block. And the side-effect of me convincing a friend to do a 300 km BRM audax at the end of this month is that I have to do the 600 km BRM, of which the first ~280 km are common. 
The stupid things we talk ourselves into. 
The most I’ve done in two consecutive days was 414 km on one day (the day before & after were full rest), & the last 100 km were pretty miserable. And I decided this time that I needed to check ahead of time if I was getting myself into something I might regret.
So I registered for a very hilly (4km of climbing) 161 km brevet plus a 206 km permanent the following day. With commutes added, both days exceeded 220 km for a total of 449 km on the weekend, & I thought should give me some kind of gauge for how I’d cope with something over 400 km.
Saturday was Glorious Foursome: the four climbs up Mt Glorious, which were-
- Mt Nebo Rd,
- Northbrook Parkway,
- Mt Glorious Rd (from the direction of Samford), &
- Goat Track. Yes that’s the name of the road, recently re-opened after repairs following the damage sustained in the cyclone in March. It looks much less goat-tracky than I remember it ever being.
Rain had been expected that morning, but we were in luck. 12°C to start with, & it only dropped down to 9°C on top, so summer kit still worked for me. And the feared Northbrook Parkway descent, often greasy & with leaf litter was dry, clean, & not cold. So much fun I thought to do it again, but declined because I was concerned over time constraints imposed by brevets. Normally wouldn’t’ve been a concern but of course it was super hilly & I was taking things conservatively, riding at about 55% when pedalling but with lots of freewheeling. Never mind, I’d get to do it again the next day.
Whilst I’d been out, rain had fallen on Mt Nebo Rd, the final road back down to the start & finish point, where I arrived in a time of 9h28’.
First climb: Mt Nebo Rd, looking NW.
Also on Mt Nebo Rd, but higher up. I love how the scenery changes with a little bit of altitude & some geographical features.
Right up on top of Mt Glorious.
A section of the Goat Track has fresh chipseal.
Also the Goat Track. Most of that road is one-way (climbing only).
Rain clouds closed in on the 30 km commute, but I got home dry.
221.9 km, with 4512 m of climbing. Certainly the hilliest 200k I’ve ever done. Sauce for Strava says it’s worth 30 donuts.
Sunday was Goat Track Gambol. Via the same Goat Track I’d climbed up the previous day, back up over Mt Glorious, down Northbrook again 
then southwest around the back of Ipswich before heading east & northeast back to Brisbane via Ipswich & the Western Freeway cycleway.
Rain had fallen overnight, making some of the Goat Track’s dirt a little gooey in places, but still pretty easy for a road bike. More concerning was the Northbrook descent, patches of damp on the road, & still with a little bit of Goat Track mud on the edges of my tyres so I descended more conservatively than the day before. 10°C on top of the mountain, & the max I measured all day was 22°C.
I’d sent my Lezyne tracker link to another randonneur friend who likes watching dots & who lives near the route, so we caught up briefly for a chat which was nice. She looked at the weather map, remarked on the rainfall happening, & sent me on my way.
It had been slow going heading south with the 20kph southwest cross-head-wind since I got on the more exposed Brisbane Valley Hwy, but when I reached Mutdapilly I did some quick maths & estimated I could possibly get back inside ten hours, which would’ve been the cutoff for the route as a BRM when it was held last November. (Nobody who signed up that day started because constant rain all day had been predicted, & did actually come to pass.) I’d been fairly conservative again all day so I was able to pick up the pace. After averaging 150w (50%) up to that point, I sat on about 200w for the largely-uninterrupted, tailwind-blessed 18 km to the next & final control at Yamanto, & about 185w for the remainder, which included popping a sprint to get through a green right turn arrow that offers very little hang-time for the approaching traffic.
I finished in 9h58’.
Ten hours is unremarkable for 200km, but because most of my self-selected targets have proven themselves to be unrealistic & this was one I actually got, I felt like I’d won a race! (Even if only a time trial.) Then I did a couple of efforts on the way back to my car: 30 sec at 150%, because I needed to burn off some nervous energy.
I reflected that without picking up the pace my legs probably had another 150km in them & were probably alright for a not-too-hilly 600 in BRM time.
Quite a different day on the Goat Track.
Sunny out west.
The clouds were back. Nearing the most southwestern point, the turnaround point, where it should 
be faster travelling.
227.2 km, with 2823 m of climbing. This one was worth 27 donuts.
this doesn’t happen very often but the timing of the workout just happened to place me in a right-hand right-angle turn in a suburban street smack bang in the middle of the second sprint interval. There was some pedalling against brakes.
Such are the pitfalls of using the app outside.
Normally I don’t stop pedalling until that hour is finished, but by then I’d be on the main roads back to the hotel.
It actually wasn’t that bad, but I did cut the last interval short by a minute. I also had ambitions of knocking out a metric century but the heat and humidity have returned so I cut off one of the corners of my planned route.
