Training Rides

Training Update

While I’ve been busying myself with my running activities we’ve continued with our training rides, albeit with reduced distance and intensity for me. Before we finally dive into our formal Ride London training plan, here’s a quick round-up of our rides from the last fortnight.

Week ending 4th May

Due to the tube strike, we each cycled to work twice during this week (totalling 43 miles for me, 36 miles for Audrey). On top of this, we rode up to Battersea Park on the Saturday and Audrey did many laps at a fabulously consistent pace, while I sat enjoying the sun tapering for my running and playing with the SheepTracker, our real time tracking solution being developed so all you lovely folk can follow us on the big day. We’ll have more on the SheepTracker in a separate post soon.

The SheepTracker in prototype form
The SheepTracker in prototype form

This ride was 16 leisurely miles for me,  30 decently paced miles for Audrey. And so, this weeks boring stats:

  • Weekly Distance: 60 miles (Mark), 66.7 miles (Audrey)
  • Audrey’s moving pace for the laps of Battersea Park: 11.9mph
  • Total punctures to date – Mark: 0, Audrey: 1
  • Total training miles to date (including cycling to work) – Mark: 326 miles, Audrey: 313 miles.

Week ending 11th May

Luckily, the second batch of tube strikes was suspended, sparing me the enforced cycling to work. After running on Monday this came as a great relief. I did cycle two days (totalling 42 miles), and Audrey cycled 18 miles around Merton on a day’s pottering. We then went to re-acquaint ourselves with Richmond Park on Sunday (where there are currently baby deer galore!), putting in some decent paced laps in the face of a strident headwind.

The headwind slowed us massively for half the lap, with the speed limit stopping us taking advantage on the other half, but it gave us a great workout. The hills are starting to get a little easier, keeping the pace up a little less hard work. Overall, a good ride to lead us into the first week of our structured training plan. We finished our laps with cakes and paninis in the café, then headed home.

Our Richmond Park ride – click for the full stats!

The boring stats

  • Weekly distance: 66.7 miles (Mark), 42.6 miles (Audrey), of which 24.6 miles was our weekend ride, 11.5 miles paced lapping Richmond Park.
  • Average moving speed (Richmond Park laps): 12.8mph (did we mention the headwind? Monstrous, it really was)
  • Moving time (Richmond Park laps): 54m05s.
  • Total punctures to date – Mark: 0, Audrey: 1
  • Total training miles to date (including cycling to work) – Mark: 393 miles, Audrey: 355 miles.