John vs. Bolton

This week's themes seem to be miles and me taking a beating. Unfortunately the miles have been in the car rather than under my own steam and the beatings have come from a variety of sources, some not so great.

Since Monday afternoon I've logged around 650miles in the car. A trip to Sussex, where I got my ass handed to me by Will Kemp, an old tri buddie turned roadie. There was me sitting at my 225w goal while he pissed off up Ditchling Beacon and waited nonchalantly at the top eating a Mars bar. I hate having to change pace!

Then back to Sheffield where I kicked my own ass on the track with some threshold intervals, although the quality of the home cooked food more than made up for the pain.

Finally Thursday was the Bolton ride day. Firstly working out where the actual route was was a little frustrating. It took me about 2:30 of riding (nearer 3:15 if you add in the stops) to work out where the bleeding thing went. However as I eventually rolled back past the car I reflected on what a great and truly British route it was and was looking forward to actually cycling it the second time around...

...I felt strong going over Sheep House Lane but descending the other side my bars came loose. I pulled into a road cursing my luck at having to stop, tightened the bars, head down, powered off, head up, S**T, parked Volvo! Too late. I went arse over tit and in the process managed to buckle my front wheel and bruise my ego. Game over for the day. I managed to cycle back to car with a very dodgy weave and then hit out a 60min tempo run off the bike. It was supposed to be 30mins easy but sod it, I was angry. All this means I'm going to have to clock more miles coming back to Bolton to ride the thing again so I can pace it correctly come August. If BP want to consider sponsoring my car, it gets seen allot on the M1/M25.

On the plus side today is beautiful in Sheffield, 22c and not a cloud in the sky. Time for a 2.5h run with 5000ft of climbing, just to make up for yesterday.