Just because it’s sunny doesn’t mean it’s warm

It’s blowing a gale in W12 and Richmond. I nearly got blown to a halt on the big hill – and I was going down it.

Apologies for the lack of posts this week, I’ve been having trouble with blogger.com and my hosting service. I’m trying to get it sorted but blogger aren’t being particularly helpful, nor are my hosts. So if this post doesn’t appear as soon as it should then you now know why.

Took the new bike out this morning and after three laps my back was killing me. This might be down to the stem being too long but I need to ride it a bit more to decide whether it was just the conditions or the bike. So far it is proving to be a lovely ride: the carbon rear and forks make everything so much smoother and there’s no waiting for the bike to come into line with any extra kick on the pedals.

I’m feeling more confident about my fitness levels even though I’m possibly not putting in quite as many miles as I shuld be. The next couple of weeks I need to put in a couple of longer rides just to keep upping the distance. 60-70 miles shouldn’t prove too much now but I need to make sure I keep the pace up. I’m recovering quicker off the little hills in the park and keeping a faster pace up them. I just need to start riding some longer hills to get used to pacing myself up them.

I was meant to make it out tomorrow for 60 miles with Rhyddid and his mate Nick but other commitments mean I can’t. As March gets under way I think it’s the time when Etaper riders across the globe start to focus on the goal and training can start to pick up a bit more intensity and the weather gets milder.

I’m hoping to get out to Spain some time in the next couple of months for a decent week’s hard training. My best friend Alex lives in Murcia and has helped find a very useful resource which gives the full course for the Tour of Murcia route:

http://www.regmurcia.com/servlet/integra.servlets.ServletLink?cat=568

It’s got all the routes for the stages, including very complete directions in Spanish. So the plan is to get out there and take on perhaps three of the longer stages in a week to gt some proper climbing in.

It’s the one area of my riding that I need to practice. I have been trying to simulate the effort by riding hard on the flat to generate the power. What I feel I need to do now is working learning to pace myself and to deal with the psychological aspect of a long climb: not getting disheartened, setting markers to break up the climb, focusing on keeping my form and rythm on the bike and remembering to keep topped up with fluids and food.

One of the advantages of getting out early on a Saturday is that it gives me time to get other stuff done. So I’d better be off and do them before I have to cycle across town and up a few hills.

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