Any big plan for any big race occasionally and somewhat inevitably, takes a bit of a ‘detour’ –factors such as tiredness, fatigue, illness or just plain-old everyday life constantly threaten to upset ‘The Plan’ and if the disruption is significant enough, throw it into chaos.

I’d been doing quite well this time. I’m can sometimes be pretty flaky when it comes to following any kind of training plan but my prep for 24 Hours of Finale Ligure had been pretty much spot-on right up until I started to feel a bit ropey immediately prior to UK12…I did the race anyway and then ‘feeling a bit ropey’ suddenly turned into ‘I’m just ILL so leave me alone’ which was a shame because last week should have been a big, hairy-chested, overload week.

I did a few hours during the week, but nowhere near what I should have done. My plan thrown into chaos. I did attempt to ride the Peak 100 sportive though; a nice leg-stretcher, for a damn good cause, on some familiar hills and in a handy spot so that I could tie it in with some Family and Friends Time. After riding the 30 miles to the start in Macclesfield I set off in the leading group of riders and whilst I wasn’t finding the pace overwhelming, I knew that I was going to find out quite soon if I’d recovered well in the last week or if I was still a bit on the weak side.

Unfortunately, 40 miles into the ride my legs started to scream. I slowed down. In fact, I stopped and took in the view. Spotted a road sign that I knew would give me a downhill shortcut to the finish so that I could bail out. Went that way, probably confusing the other riders in the small group but to be honest they could probably sense my weakness as I probably had a face like a slapped arse by then….

Back to the start/finish, hand in my number and then a gentle-ish ride home and a massage.

This week’s going to be much better 🙂