Saturday Training

Hi

Getting a bit tired now and am on call today so had to go out really early to be back in time, ended up getting up at 05:15 so needless to say this was always going to be a solo effort. Not quite able to keep my HR up to hit the 150 average but managed 146 so it was a decent effort, still had good old Lemmington in my legs as well as Thursday's hard hour on the CompuTrainer.

Due to time constraints did a 1:30 effort for which my average HR was 146 covering 28.23 miles at an average speed of 18.8 mph. Pretty Ok with this given the fatigue and the rather strong wind I was having to deal with for what seemed like most of the route!

Long ride tomorrow and then that's the hard work for the Cumberland Challenge pretty much done, must try not to eat too much next week! I have extracted some interesting information from my records about 2 of the challenges I did last year, read on:

Last year's Cumberland Challenge was 107 miles and I recorded 7621' of ascent, in the Polka Dot Challenge which was 101 miles I recorded 7641' of ascent. My time for the Polka Dot was 6:41 and for the Cumberland Challenge 7:11 BUT in the Cumberland Challenge I punctured TWICE and lost at least 20 minutes, maybe more, and the weather was terrible. A weather and puncture adjusted Cumberland Challenge finish time would have been about 6:45.

Now, I reckon if I am fitter a finish time in the Cumberland Challenge of below 7 hours is certainly achievable and there is a think the possibility of finishing below 6:30. Last year there were about 400 entries and 6:30 would have given about a 60th placing so top 100 or top 25% is potentially possible if I really get stuck in and have a good event. I finished in 158th last year.