Back on the bike, after almost 30 years

nilhg

Distance: 129.07 km
Time: 5:07:18 h:m:s
Elevation Gain554 m
Avg Speed: 25.72 km/h
2 hrs on turbo

A better week, turbo Tuesday night, hard enough session, and again Thursday evening, this one more of a constant effort.

I was mad keen to get back on the road by the weekend so chanced the frosty conditions on Saturday morning, the salted roads were fine so stuck to them, legs felt great, and while I was always leaving a margin for error I gave it a decent blast, no worrying about HR or zones.

This morning conditions were better so I left early (for December) and did a nice long spin, mostly solo but did meet one of the Kildare lads and spun with him for for a while. Nothing mad, just a nice even pace most of the way, the last 25km or so were mostly into the breeze and I did feel tired towards the end but I'm putting that down to not eating enough, I stopped in Kildare and had a coffee after 40km but just had a banana after that.

http://app.strava.com/activities/31639419#

Depending on what the weather brings I'll get in a spin or two during the week (or back to the turbo) and hopefully a decent spin again next weekend.

nilhg

This week:

Distance:144.82 km
Time:5:44:58 h:m:s
Elevation Gain:632 m
Avg Speed:25.2 km/h
+1 hr turbo session.

Very busy this Monday and Tuesday so skipped he turbo session I had planned, did an hour @75% HR on Thursday night to keep the legs spinning.

Nice solo spin yesterday, the original idea was to take it easy and just spin but against the wind on the open roads of the old N9 an the Athy slip road it was hard to make any decent progress without pushing a bit and even at that when I turned for home I was running a little late so kept moving along, enjoyed the spin.

http://app.strava.com/activities/32457561

Today I met one of the Kildare lads and had a nice 66km spin through the same general area as yesterday, nice conversational pace.

As of this evening I'm 390km away from my goal of doing 7000km this year, I haven't been counting the turbo sessions because there doesn't seem to be a way to correlate gear v resistance v cadence/perceived effort.

Hopefully the weather will hold up and I'll get to do it on the road over the Christmas period.

nilhg

This week:

Distance:187.54 km
Time:7:07:27 h:m:s
Elevation Gain:848 m
Avg Speed:26.3 km/h


A good week, something is working because I'm starting to feel very comfortable again on the bike, maybe it's just the warmer weather but it just seems that I can manage the same speeds with less effort.

Tuesday morning I grabbed an hour to do the "hilly" local loop that I use with a little extra thrown in, I felt good so decided to push on a bit, not really flat out but 85-90%. The roads on the loop are deadish enough and there's not really many areas to recover, I fully expected to blow up towards the end but surprised myself by the end. 31km @27.6km/hr


Friday, with the forecast looking poor enough for the weekend, I took the morning off to try to get a nice long spin in, I wasn't worried about average speed, just wanted to clock up some kms and see a bit of the countryside. I felt really good all through, and finished feeling fresh, very happy with my 102km spin.


I was out last night so this morning I passed on the club spin from Kildare and instead did a flatish loop on my own, out against the wind and back with it behind, my legs were just about the only part of me that felt OK so I was able to have a nice 2hr spin, finishing fresher than I would have thought possible. 54km @ 26.8km/hr.


I hope to get a few decent spins in over Xmas, but that depends on normal life and the weather playing ball, we'll see how it goes:D.

nilhg

This week:

Distance:219.91 km
Time:8:28:15 h:m:s
Elevation Gain:1,306 m
Avg Speed:26.0 km/h


Made the best of some free time this week to get 4 nice spins in, nothing too hectic, 37km on Xmas eve, and 3 roughly 60km spins later in the week, one solo two with a few of the fellas from Headstrong CC in Kildare town, yesterdays would have been the hardest even if it hadn't the highest average speed, the lads were cruising on the flat, then we met a few nice drags and there was a little headbanging going on with me trying to hang in at the rear, while I was dropped I felt I wasn't disgraced, and was happy enough heading for home apart from the head wind. I did pass my 7000km for the year target on this spin though so that was good.

http://app.strava.com/activities/34534245

I may get out for a while tomorrow so I'll leave wrapping up the year and this log till later in the week.

nilhg

This month:


Distance:755.48 km
Time:29:40:00 h:m:s
Elevation Gain:3,714 m
Avg Speed:25.5 km/h


Got out for a little spin with my brother on Monday to finish off the year, it turned out to be a frustrating one, leaving he said to me that he had no spare tyre/puncture kit which was fine since I had plenty but when the enevitable happened after 10km or so we realised that his back wheel didn't have a quick release and I didn't have a spanner so it was a case of stopping every 10 minutes or so to pump it up, and it rained, and got cold, and dark, and bloody miserable before we got home, so not the greatest end to the year ever but at least it was his bike not mine:D.

Final figure for 2012 was 7,051.07 km but more about last year to come shortly....

nilhg

When I started this log I never would have believed where I've finished up, it's not so much the things that I did this year (we'll get to them in a minute) but the appetite I have to do more, looking forward to hardship and pain, there must be something wrong with me.....



Anyway I'm only going to pick a few highlights, anyone who wants more can skim through the pages of this log, but the basics are after a long time with no structured exercise I started cycling at the end of last January first on a budget hybrid and later on a decent Trek roadbike, quicker than I would have thought possible I built up the length of my individual spins and weekly total kms until I felt confident enough to do my first sportif which was the Tour de Foothills. Eventually I finished up doing six sportives during the year

• Tour de Foothills,
• Cycle For Life
• Ring of Kerry
• Leinster Loop
• Rebel Tour
• Castlecomer Challenge

I would like to have done a few more but sometimes real life gets in the way.

Highlights

The Rebel Tour, it wasn't just the landscape and the fact that it was a weekend away that made this my favourite event of the year but that I really had to dig deep to finish it, I hadn't been well for a day or two before, loads of my pals were down to do the 85km and it would have been easy to change over from the 160km on the morning, I felt really poorly after the first time over the Healy Pass and almost turned back on the road to CastletownBere but managed to give myself a talking to and kept going.

The people I met on the roads, I've been lucky, everywhere I've gone folk have encouraged me, dragged me along, sheltered me from the wind and just generally been decent to me, some I've only met the once, others I've been out with locally around here, sometimes they nearly kill me but it's always in a good cause.

Health, hard to say much on this and a picture saves a thousand words so I'll share this with you, pic is poor but you'll get the drift



Apart from losing the weight (approx 18kg) I just generally feel better, sleep better and (have to be modest here) look better or so folk tell me.

So that's it for 2012 folks, many thanks to those who commented, thanked and read this log, the 2013 version will be coming soon.

t'bear

Certainly an inspiration yourself John also, others I am sure (myself included) are following in the same footsteps (pedal strokes) in relation to health, weight and general wellness that benefits from cycling, and its bloody fun too!

Congrats on last years achievements :-)