Training, training, training

Looking back over my recent posts I can see that since March my training really started to pick up.  July has been no different.  The Ride 100 is looming and I'm feeling the pressure.

When I look at Strava I can see that I have ridden 430 miles between 1 and 30 July!

Here's a summary of the training

30 mile training loop with Stuart (x 3) - trip to Ivinghoe cafe with a simply stunning lime and courgette cake coffee stop.  A superb route which is now one of my favourites.

Early morning loops round the common.  (X 3 ) 10 laps, each one being 0.6 miles.  Ridden at 5am to avoid traffic.  Totally over the moon to somehow achieve an average of 16mph.  (When I started out I was averaging 11 mph!)

Roaring Reds Breeze rides round the lanes on a Thursday evening (x4).   These rides follow the same über picturesque route around the lanes and always end up in the pub.  A really fun way to spend a summer's evening.

Unfortunately on one of these rides I had two punctures in a row.  This really messed up the ride, and I was very grateful that Susan and Tracey stayed with me whilst I waited for Stuart to collect me as my ride was aborted.  I'd had trouble with my wheel rims before, but thought these had been fixed.  There was only one thing for it.  New wheels! 

Saturday morning bonus rides (x2) with some of the Breeze gang plus others.  Really good fun rides.  Exactly what cycling should be about!

A middle weekend in July and we find ourselves in Worcester for a gathering of Stuart's cousins for a wedding celebration.  Obviously the bikes came with us, so on the Sunday morning we are able to head into Shakespeare's country for a beautiful ride.

Milton Keynes the return.  I took a day's leave to do a slightly longer ride with Stuart.  When we did the MK sportive we noticed that at the southern point of the loop we were only about 15 miles from home. The route was lovely, very pretty, nice roads,  so a plan was hatched to return to MK via train and then ride all the way home.  It was a good plan, but with a major omission - checking the wind direction. On the whole of the North to South ride we battled a serious headwind.  If only we had ridden South to North and come home by train, it would have been a very different ride!

Since this was an independent ride with no feed stations, I was taking no chances and loaded up with an M&S baguette when we arrived at MK station

VCC - only one Sunday club ride this month.  No time to fit any others in, but what a special ride!  The club organises an all day ride covering 100 miles.  The Sociables  group take a slightly shorter route of 80 miles.  

The day starts at 9 as usual and after a 25 miles (20 for sociables) a coffee and cake stop at the lovely High Cross, then 25 (20) miles and lunch at a nice pub (the other side of Stansted airport!) then 25 (20) miles to more coffee and cake and then 25 (20) miles home.  A great day out, and I ended up doing 90 miles with rides to the start and finish,  my longest ride to date and great training!

(I start the ride with a bit of a photobomb in my Tour de France Jersey!   - middle picture)

So finally, it is the day before The Ride 100 and we head into London to book into our hotel.  We ride to Olympic park to check out the lay of the land, and then head to the city to join the Free cycle on London's closed roads, and then back to the hotel along the fabulous cycle superhighway CS3.

I don't think I could have packed in any more training, I'm as ready as I will ever be!