Training Rides

Week 10: Starting to taper back

Monday 21 July – Sunday 27 July. T-minus 2 weeks to Ride London.
Total Team Sheep Miles: 2764; Total raised for Friendship Works: £693

Just a quick update this week. After the peak of our training last week banished some fears of the broom wagon, we’re now starting to taper down and, as we were away for the weekend, we only got two rides in.

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Our first few days of matching your donations for Friendship Works have gone really well with £60 for us to match thanks to our new supporters! Still £140 in our matching budget, though – if we can get that in the next few days it will mean an extra £800 going to Friendship Works compared to a week ago! If you’ve been meaning to donate but haven’t had the chance yet (you’ve got the tab open, you’ve been meaning to get round to it, must do that soon), get that credit card out and do it now – remember every £1 donated will mean £4 for Friendship Works for the next couple of days, and you can donate directly in dollars or pounds so no nasty card fees to pay.

Wednesday: Hills / Fast

Wednesday saw us do a combined hill training and speed session on Wimbledon Hill and around Richmond Park, which went reasonably well – 19 miles for Audrey and 21 miles for Mark.

Friday: 55 pacey miles

Friday morning was our last really long training ride – 55 miles. As we had a train to catch in the afternoon, we went to Richmond Park and lapped around in various directions until we had the distance we needed.

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The most appropriate registration plate, spotted in Richmond Park

This gave us our fastest long ride by far – a moving average of 14.1mph! It felt really good to be able to maintain a decent pace over this distance of uninterrupted riding – and bodes very well for the day. It was the longest ride we’d want to do without stopping for a short lunch break, and Audrey faded some in the last 10 miles likely because she hadn’t eaten enough while we pedalled.

Keeping well fuelled is one of the hardest bits of this to get right, so it was good for us to be reminded of the importance of paying close attention to it.

Click for full Ride with GPS stats

Next week

As we near the end of our training, shorter rides that maintain the intensity are the order of the day. So we’ll be doing two or three quick blasts next week including some hills and some fast riding, then a 35 mile easy long ride next Sunday to keep us in the game.

The boring stats:

  • Weekly distance: 76 miles (Mark), 74 miles (Audrey).
  • Average moving speed (long ride): 14.1mph
  • Moving time (long ride): 3h52m
  • Total punctures to date – Mark: 0, Audrey: 2
  • Total zero-speed falling-over-due-to-cleat-issues – Mark: 9,  Audrey: n/a.
  • Total training miles to date (including cycling to work) – Mark: 1500 miles, Audrey: 1263 miles + 6 hours spinning.