Friday 1 January 2010

New Years Day ( a memorable start to the year)

2.35am OMG what the hell am I doing a wake at this time of the morning, I banked on my 7.5 mile run the day before guaranteeing me a good nights sleep, this was the commute to end all commutes 100km to work in temperatures around -2c, but despite the lack of sleep and tired legs from the previous days run I wasn`t going to back down on this, after all promised Kelownagurl a voicemail during the ride and told most my friends of my plans. I still reckon I had the best deal from the 100km trainer challenge, I mean how tough is 4 hours on the trainer!!!!

5.45am Finally set off, too late to be honest hoping for a 5.30 start, had to be at work by 9.45am so knew 100km was going to be tough. The weather outside was pretty much what i expected and the sky's were clear the winds were lighter than expected. I set off with a route planned , but soon realised that the best bet was not to attempt a 100km round route to work, but keep close to Rugby so I knew where i was, didn`t need the stress of getting lost, time was already a bit tight, so in the end I just took roads as and when i pleased.


6.45 One of the high points of the ride.At this point I`d managed to get the blood circulating enough to get myself pretty warm, partly due to the fact I was stuck on the big chainring. A couple of days before the bike shop had supposedly fixed my gears..hmm. With a full moon up and the peace of a New years morning the ride had a surreal quality to iy..fantastic,felt strong and even my gears were starting to behave themselves.

7.25am reached the half way point averaging about 27kph.. after climbing a few testing hills and needing a much needed pee break :-)) decided to take a five minute break,munch on a muesli bar and take a gel. At this point I decided it was a good time to send the voice mail. The break was nice and gave me a bit of a boost when i got going again, however the cold was starting to really get to my hands, during the break took my gloves off, and although they cold cold, i was not overly bothered, expected with some hard cycling they`d soon warm up a bit. My gloves though had got very damp inside, and putting cold hands into cold wet gloves well needless to say my hands suffered for the next 10k or so. If anything it had got colder, although that was probably jsustt my perception.
On the plus side, the sunrise was gorgeous and my legs still felt okay so I pressed on.


9.00am
Found myself passing my house. On the way to work now on one of my longer commuting routes about 12 miles a way, I was familiar with this route so somehow despite the constant headwind felt great and could see the end in sight, at this point I knew I didn`t have the time for the full 100km, but I knew with the commute home at 7pm it would just about hit the 100 mark!

9.40am woohoo made it!!....despite a few hardships this was definitely one of my favourite rides for a long long time, and although work was.. mm how shall i put it, challenging would be a polite way of putting it, at the end of the day had no regrets at all about doing the ride, lol although have no plans to repeat it in a hurry!! Total km 92.2..and the ride home 8.2..totally 100.4km....AWESOME, maybe save the next 100km commute till next new year


HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL ...All the best for 2010

2 comments:

  1. Great blog Dave, really enjoyed reading it. Fantastic level of continued effort and commitment. If efforts on the day of the OUTLAW TRIATHLON match your training you will kick its arse. Keep up the blogging mate great reading.

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  2. Thanks for the encouraging comments elibit...really help keep me motivated

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