300 miles was the target for this week. Saturday’s ride wasn’t great though. Out on the road bike, early morning. Cold, windy, raining, getting wetter. Horrible. It was winter again, except I hadn’t dressed for winter. Cut the ride short after 2 hours when I could no longer feel my fingers or toes, headed home and went back to bed for a bit. It’s been ages since I did that, but I enjoyed it I must admit. At least I climbed plenty whilst I was out.

So…I had a bit of a mountain to climb today, mileage-wise. The only thing that could save me now (given the fact that I only had the afternoon spare for training) was a road century. The thing is, the sky is grey, it’s still chilly and it’s raining. It’s still winter. The summer was here last week though!!! Waaaah!

Going for a ride on the road bike, like I do all the time in winter, would be far too depressing.

So I decided to ride a 11.5 mile local offroad loop (on some of the trails “made famous” by Hit the North). 13 Arches, Philips Park, over to Nob End, climb up Prestolee Road, along the cheeky singletrack by the marina. I reckoned I had time to ride this loop five times. So I did.

The plan was to keep the lap times consistent (tick, all within a minute of each other), a good average (not bad at 12.5mph) and keep the heart rate under control (average around 80% – good). No crashes, no dog bites, returned happy having ridden a total of 59 miles off-road and mostly out of the pesky wind.

No 300 miles this week though. 44 miles short. ‘Bothered.