Solo 95 miler today. Planned for 100, but would’ve called it at 80 if I didn’t need to get back to the car lol. Last weekend I had my first 100 mile gravel race and while I crushed all my power PR’s, I wasn’t recovered as well as I thought today. This may be the first ride I’ve ever cut short, outside or inside. Although I still did nearly the whole ride, about 3/4 the way through it was evident my legs weren’t fully recovered so I knew any additional miles weren’t adding value. I have two intensity sessions scheduled this week but I’ll probably dial it back to one.
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Considering you’ve reported you struggled, that’s still a decent pace for 90+ miles - great work 
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Went on an relatively easy ride on Sunday. Made it a 14h week before my rest week. Weather was nice, a bit hazy so the view to the Alps wasn’t perfect.
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Made me chuckle
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I got home just in time to do an hour workout in the light after the clock change. I had Taftan in my plan. I first headed down Holme Road to do a loop in the fens but the ECML level crossing was down and I could have been there for 15minutes and I didn’t have light for that. So I headed for the Connington Airfield road but after a lap of that I decided that it was sketchy enough of a surface in the twilight so another lap was unadvisable. So I headed down the Old A1 to Alconbury Weald. When I got there in the cooldown I stopped the clock to clip on my front light. Lol, then I realised it was only 3 blocks and my hour of daylight was up. There was some great sunset scenes on the way back but with my poor circulation post chemo and wearing short sleves, shorts and knee warmers. I dared not stop until I was close enough to home. I got bad enough frostbite snapping what I did 
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Great sunset pic!
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With me having pulled forward today’s Threshold workout to last night, today was free for a TrainNow session. TN identified the Endurance workout Black.
I headed down to Holme Road which was really exposed making it easy to hold a consistent power level, even down the steep Church Rd to Holme Road. Then I headed down the Old A1, again into what seemed like a headwind. I then turned 180deg at the Woodwalton roundabout, expecting an almighty tailwind, only to find it was a headwind again. I was unsure if I had enough interval time to be complete befor the new A1 (M)/ London Road roundabout so I a left into Stilton before doubling back to the roundabout.
It was the first ride of the year without knee warmers and if I didn’t need to go back to the office, I could have stayed out all day 
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I had a SS session to do today. The only issue I mis calculated my turn and ended up doing circa 5 miles more than I meant to. Having said that the only person bothering that my lunch hour session took half an hour longer than it should is probably only me. It was a similar route to the last few days out on the flat Holme Rd and the relatively flat old A1 turning at Alconbury (I should have turned at Woodwalton). But because I was running late there was 80s of Z5 up the cycle path.
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My usual group ride today 
It was a bit of a windy grey start but the winds blew away the clouds quickly and it soon turned
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Went for a spin with one of the faster youth riders in our club today. I’m almost three times his age so was pretty pleased to keep up.
(I think he was ‘tolerating’ me )
Nice lunch at the end made the efforts worth it 
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Blue Ridge Extreme Gravel (BREG) - Long Route
St. George, VA
TLDR: Fun event but was definitely under-biked on my gravel bike mainly due to (lack of) gearing. Some of the climbs were so steep that even those with mountain bike gearing were walking.
Lauf Seigla, Enve AG25, Schwalbe Thunderburt 2.1, eThirteen Race Helix (9-45) cassette, 40T front chain ring (should have gone with a 38T or smaller), Grit suspension fork.
Ride started at the Blue Ridge School in St. George, VA. Beautiful grounds, and apparently they have a NICA club sponsored by Trek.
The first 10 minutes were on single track used by the NICA team. It was fun, but super punchy. Very glad for the Lauf Grit Fork to absorb some of the rougher stuff. Had to stop briefly at one point to un-tangle and remove a 6-foot vine from my cassette.
First climb was brutal, with two sections where I had to walk. Set a new max HR right before getting off of the bike. Not sure if that’s a good thing or not. Descent was steep with a lot of hairpins on the backside of the mountain. Spent a lot of time on the brakes, but let it go on the straight sections (max speed was just under 40 mph).
Gravel in between was good with some flat roads connecting the rolling dirt sections. It was overcast and cool (mid-60s F) for most of the ride. The cloud cover burned off and the sun came out for the last 30 minutes or so, raising the temp to 80 F right before finishing.
Ended up walking two sections on the last climb, too. Descent was equally as steep. Walked one more time on the road back up to the school before ending on single track again, some of which we did not ride at the beginning.
Lunch after the ride was quite good, cooked in the school’s dining hall.
Overall fun event, but I doubt I’ll do it again. Too much time off of the pedals - either walking or coasting the downhills. Variability Index (VI) was 1.35. I prefer steadier rides, but glad I did it at least once.
Got to give a super thanks to my wife for letting me go. I had been away on a business trip Monday-Thursday, and I was gone all day Saturday to do this since it was two hours away, so she essentially had no break from the kids.
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Just 3 of us out for the Yaxley Riders Spinner Ride today. There was a fair few riders out for their shorter rides, not that the Spinner is that long. I was tempted to go out for a gravel ride and take advantage of the and East wind and grab some tiles but I decided to watch Flanders instead. I think I made too many efforts into the wind anyway when there was just two of left.
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I had Manly scheduled for tomorrow night but I pulled it ahead to leave tomorrow free. I didn’t actually start the workout until I got to the almost interuption free Holme Rd. The majority of times I turn right at the bottom of it, as there is a major level crossing to the left which is nearly always down. Tonight was one of those rare occasions when it was actually up. I prefer the roads after the left turn for training as they are like Holme Road, nearly uninterrupted. It’s a pretty windy area though, I was averaging 20mph down Holme Road for just 128w NP in the warm up but just 18.5mph for 55w NP more when I was going east then North during the main interval.
You can see the two times I stopped in the long cool down to snap the setting sun 
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Another great day sunwise, a bit chillier though so it was back to bib long and a long sleeve jacket for tonight’s endurance workout (Pioneer-3). TrainNow actually suggested a climbing workout but wary of it being a rest week I selected the Endurance option and decided to make it a higher cadence session. Amazingly when I headed down Holme Road the ECML level crossing was about to rise (that’s two sessions in a row). So I headed into the flat fens where its easier to deliver a consistent cadence.
Edit to Add Thursday Night’s Ride.
I can’t remember what Endurance workout was in my calendar tonight but after last night’s AIFTPD boost it adapted down last night, then adapted up to ‘Black’ which I think was the same level as the original workout. Taking advantage of the weather I again took it outdoors. It was complete opposite of last night temperature wise but the same It was back to shorts and short sleves tonight
I went down Holme Road as usual but when the ECML level crossing was down rather than going all the way down the old A1 I cut into Sawtry and Northamptonshire. It was mainly a high cadence session except for the one hill in Northamptonshire when the chain wouldn’t shift to the small chainring. It rarely gets used here, so often jams 
Edit to add Saturday’s Ride (The forum doesn’t let me add 3 replies in a row)
Today was the usual Saturday group ride. A few were away though so despite the excellent weather only 4 of us were out and after warming up with us my strong TT’ing mate pulled of to do intervals before meeting us again at the cafe. We also met another mate there who’d been gravelling. I only made one real effort on the ride and it was a long way behind my best of 12years ago.
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Finally got out on the new bike. Did some research on the trails in the area and between reddit and facebook kept coming up with this being the place to go for beginners or in my case haven’t been on a mtb in about 12 years.
I initially was starting to regret not getting something more XC oriented since that is what I did years ago but once I was out there I was very happy with my purchase. I ended up hot lapping the jump trails for a while which was a little sketchy on the stock plastic pedals. Wanted to ride it on flats before deciding on pedals and think I’ll be sticking to flats on this so time to look for an upgrade.
Shoes, pedals, and a new helmet is going to be an expensive week. I thought I could get by with my Ballista for a little bit, other than it looking weird, but man that thing is toasty climbing hills with no airflow in the woods.
Beginning to understand why people have a half dozen mtbs now, still think I want something to race XC with sooner than later, but with how much fun I was having on the downhills/jumps can see wanting something full suspension/enduro type bike. Then a dad rolled up with is 3 kids and single speed dirt jump bikes and i’m like oh yeah need one of those too.
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Over Easter my wife and I went to Mallorca for the second time. I think I’d get bored if I went there every year or for more than a week or so at a time, but the roads really ARE as good as everyone says. I love that all of the iconic cols etc have essentially ZERO potholes - roads like glass almost, and seems like they must be swept constantly as well, barely any gravel/rocks/debris on them anywhere.
We were based in a beautiful AirBnB right at the top of Alaró and did a couple of big (for me) loops out to Sóller/Deià/Valdemossa and Andratx. Beautiful.
Yesterday we hit Sa Calobra for the first time. I’d have liked to do a loop via Sóller but we were due to fly home and it would have made timings a bit tight, so we opted for an out-and-back, yuck 
Some of you will already have guessed from my name that I quite like a bit of speed - I’m a mountain-biker at heart. So as you can imagine, I like a good descent. Sa Calobra didn’t disappoint… although I was gutted to meet a couple of buses half way down that took forever to get past. Ah well. Made a new segment as we all do in those situations (
) - fastest man down the top 4km of Sa Calobra that day, out of 350. 15th/12,000 this year, top 0.3% overall. That’ll do. Not big or clever, but I always feel I have to try to find some pointless Strava achievement (that no-one apart from me cares about) on a ride 
(Side note: I liked how approving everyone seemed to be as I was giving it full-gas on the way down, I had worried that people might think I was being a dick, but it didn’t seem that way 
)
As a little bonus I managed to hit a new max HR on the way back up - I mostly rode sociably with my wife but gave it the beans from the corkscrew to the summit and saw 192 (I’m 44 btw), when I’ve not seen over 190 for years…
…which is probably not ideal when I had an ACL reconstruction in November, which then led to a “massive” blood clot in my thigh in January and a pulmonary embolism in February… But hey ho, 24hrs later and I still seem to be alive, so let’s say the apixaban is doing its job 
Suffice to say TR isn’t very happy with my exploits, given how little I’ve done in the last few months:
I’m happy to obey the red days for now, my poor un-practiced bum is in tatters
Thanks Mallorca, we’ll be back (again).
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Very nice, KOD (King of Descents).
I like a bit of descending myself. They’re the only strava segments I have a hope of topping. Also at 44, my adrenals still think I’m a bulletproof teenager. I feel like I only climb so I can descend. There were some mad road descents where I used to live, but the flat lands where I currently live are keeping me on the straight & narrow (most of the time). Got an audax on Saturday taking me up & back down the Great Dividing Range, so that’ll be interesting.
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I’ve had plenty of dh mtb crashes over the years. I’m yet to have a downhill road one… long may it continue, I like my skin
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The Athens Twilight Gambler Ride!
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