Todays my Birthday and interestingly enough I only got one cycling related present! David came up trumps again by finding a book on cycling I hadn’t read! Don’t know how he manages it. Enjoyed a light day of training – 50 minute run to the pool and a 90 minute swim. Was going well. Rest of day just chilled out.

At the weekend I did what has become a bit of a birthday tradition – a Birthday attempt at a long ride. I headed out North and got as far as Oundle. Virtually off the road map I use ! Flukily (is that a word?) I bumped into Kevin, Ray and Andrea at their start point and they kindly reversed their ride so we could do the first 35 miles together. I then head North north north to meet Roger, a guy I met in New Zealand who qualified for Kona. He lives near Rutland so he headed a bit south to meet me. It was great to chat about all things Ironman and, knowing I wanted a big ride, he helped me by taking me further north to Oundle for coffee and a sandwich. Pretty committing considering I had 100 miles on the clock and I’d been cycling away from home the whole time.

Luckily I was on my race bike and had been motoring this didn’t let up on the return as I really didn’t have much time to mess about. In 10 hours I covered 178 miles which is good going for me. By the time I got home I’d done a mere 204 miles ! Longest ride of the year.

Sunday felt like an easy ride as I was heading out with Jo to accompany her on her 3.5 hour IM pace effort. We cycled an hour out and started. I was on my P3C again and I had great fun, letting Jo get ahead then pummeling it till I got ahead and then pushing on for 10 minutes until I was getting close to a turn on the route we planned. I then eased up to let Jo catch up again and then I’d repeat. I ended up with a 3.5 hours hard interval session and my legs certainly felt it. The final section from Great Dunmow to Leaden Roding I blasted at 27 mph !! I felt awesome.

Really enjoyed this and looking forward to the summers training I’ve been mapping out which will include a lot more of this sort of quality bike work.