63 days to go - the wrong kind of bonk

Image ©Paul Smith

Well that's the first full week back on the bike after the enforced rest due to the knee issues and I'm pleased to report it's been a good productive week - well it was until yesterday (Sunday).

On Tuesday and Thursday I did gentle hour long rides (with a bugger of head wind on Thursday) and had no real issues with the knee. It still felt a bit painful pedalling standing up so the solution to that is not to pedal standing up for now.

Saturday mornings ride was literally the first 25 miles of my trip from home to just north of Preston. It was pretty uneventful if I'm honest apart from nearly getting flattened by a reversing farmer on a quad bike and the stench of cow poo on the A6 by Garstang (not pleasant when you're inhaling great lungfuls of air). My hydration for the ride was fine and I didn't take any food as it was only about 1 hour 40 minutes of riding and all went to plan although my legs did feel it but I love that feeling of aching legs. Having returned home I had some late lunch and settled down watching the Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy) even resisting the lure of a glass of wine.

After the success of Saturday I decided I'd ride the second 25 miles of my trip from Preston to Wigan on Sunday. There was a couple of reasons for this. Firstly I'd not ridden on consecutive days for a fair while and secondly I wasn't entirely convinced by the routing through Preston as it had me going through Avenham Park. All went well (apart from having tired legs) until I hit Avenham Park and there was some kind of 10km run on along with the usual dogs on long leads, kids running about and people oblivious to their surroundings. I know mixed use paths are great and have their place but I generally try to avoid them as you just can't keep a rhythm when riding on them so Avenham Park and the disused tramway on the other side of the River Ribble just helped me bleed time and pace.

Then I bonked. I didn't jump in the bushes with anyone for a bit of adult fun but ran out of glycogen. Basically your body stores carbohydrate in the body in the form of glycogen and when that runs out you bonk - anything sugary normally helps you out but as I was only out for and hour and half (or so I thought) I didn't have any energy drinks (only electrolyte drinks), food or money with me, a real beginners mistake from someone who should know better. In my defence I have been eating a carb depleted diet since October so I suspect my glycogen stores aren't in the best shape - isn't hindsight wonderful? So there I am sat slightly north of Leyland feeling frankly shite and totally empty and thinking about tossing my stupid f**king bike over the hedge and sitting down and crying. Eventually after giving myself a good talking too and growing a pair of balls I thought I'm going to take this a mile at a time and cracked on towards Wigan where I was being collected. A mile is long way when you are empty, have a head ache and feel nauseous and have another 13 miles to ride. Every time the road rises you feel like you are riding up an Alp (I've done that so I know) and sods law dictates the gentle headwind has increased in strength. You feel like you are pedalling squares rather than nice circles and you start running out of gears on the flat and it feels like someone is holding a lighter under each hamstring. It got to the point where I was struggling to concentrate and parked cars were jumping out at me which is probably the scariest part.

Eventually I arrived at the prearranged meeting point and a can of Coke, Subway footlong and three cookies later I felt a bit human again. I'd averaged a paltry 13 mph average speed and taken two hours to do what should have taken me an hour fifteen but had learned a valuable lesson - albeit one that I really didn't need teaching and that I need to tweak my route a bit.

The plan for this week is 1.5 hour rides on Tuesday and Thursday with one session being hill repeats and then 2.5 to 3 hour rides with good fuelling on Saturday and Sunday.

As a final twist of irony below is a photo of a delivery I got on Thursday - idiot.