Don't Panic!!

But there's less than 9 weeks left. 9 weeks!! Where did the other 25 go?

Weigh in
This weeks 99.2kg
Loss of 0.8kg

Miles last week 147
Longest ride 85 miles

April total miles 549

Unfortunately, I couldn't find the opportunity to go out and 'go the extra mile' for 550, but that's just another number, so who cares?

More importantly, Mark commented after the Wales weekend that "these climbs will redefine the ones at home", and so it proved. On Tuesday, I hit the road with Brett for a 'gentle' 15 miles which was completed in a decent 47 minutes and included the not-so-infamous Col de Loxley.

The Col de Loxley is the closest hill of any size to where I work, and gratuitously forms part of the local triathlon course (just because its there). Normally, I crest this hill wheezing and red-faced in my bottom gear (30/27) owing to the 10% pitches at bottom and top. On Tuesday I had 2 cogs to spare, one on the cassette and one on the chain-ring, hence getting over in 40/25. How chuffed was I? Especially since I could still breathe.

Yesterdays Forest of Dean Spring Classic was mucky because of the intermittent rain, but a great course, and very tough event. At least, that's how I found it. The website doesn't do the course justice, not pointing out the 14 named climbs en-route. It was on the first of these that I passed "Team Cycling Plus minus One" on their nice new FELT bikes. Karen doesn't need to be told how good the climbs were, but I'm sure she'll be back soon, better, stronger, faster. Won't you, Karen??

Route information and report will follow, but the obligatory stats are:

Distance 134km
Climb 2,773 metres
Predicted time: 6:25 (recast from 6:39 after Wales, see below)
Ride Time 6:25 (happy!!)
Elapsed Time 6:42
Average speed 20.9 kmh
Top Speed 67 kmh
Average Heart Rate 149 (despite maxing at 172 on the day's first climb)
Calories expended 5,758

Predicted times are drawn from a simple formula on Memory Map, where you input your "on the flat" speed (28kmh), add on some time for every 10m of climbing, and take some off for every 10m of descent (6 seconds). The addition for 10m of climb started at 1 minute in January last year, and speed at 25kmh. The climb penalty was down to 30 seconds by the Cheshire Cat this year, and another 3 seconds down to 27 seconds for this weekends FOD prediction. Since I hit that target, I'll keep it for now.

Most importantly, those predictions result in an Etape of 8 hours 15 minutes (plus stops). Keep up the effort, the training and the weight loss, and I might never see that Broom Wagon.