Short week with only 7 hours completed. Had some studying to too plus needed a slow weekend.
Only went out for 2 hours on Saturday for a ride through town ending up at Richmond Park. It was a beautiful day with no cloud and temperature at about 20degrees when I started riding at 7h00. The park is great this time of year, the deer are out in their hundreds and so are the people, running, cycling, hiking, horse riding etc. Richmond park has a 11km round route which can be ridden clock or counterclockwise. You share the road with cars too so not ideal but cyclists almost have right of way as they are all over the place.
It's always interesting going out to the park as the cyclists get pretty competitive around there. You see them chasing each other down and sprinting up and down the straight sections, as if they are competing in some weird free for all race.I usually get caught up in it as well, and especially enjoy when I drop the roadies (road bike cyclists) on my mountain bike!
On my way back I cycled into a small street where only one car at a time can get through, I was behind one of these Volkswagen people carriers when it stopped suddenly even though I am to blame for not concentrating, I crashed right into the back of it, front wheel first, followed by my right cheek, the imprint is certainly still on there. The driver stopped immediately and did not get out, after giving myself a once over for injuries I rode over to the passenger side. The driver rolled down the electric windows and then joined his girlfriend or wife in a wide eyed staring contest with myself. They looked at me as if I was an alien that just landed from outer space where they enjoy wearing lycra and probably worship it too. Or they must have thought I was a helmet wearing angel as I was dressed completely in a white cycling outfit , complete with white overshoes! Anyway, I assured the driver and his chickie that their automobile was not damaged and that they should be able to continue, this comment just caused their stares to widen considerably, probably not believing that I was more concerned with their car then my possible injuries. I then had to assure them that I was fine, and eventually they were off. As I said nothing major, few bruises and my cheek will be red for the weekend, nice, with my white cycling clothes I will look like snow white, hit with an ugly stick and fed a shiza load of hamburgers by the dwarfs.
It was always on the cards that I would have an accident on the bike. It's a wonder that I get to work sometimes the way I ride in traffic but to be honest of I don't take some chances it would be "dead" boring!
Back to my training for the week. After 2 years with my fancy Polar 725I heart rate monitor , I finally found out that the watch has a build in altimeter( I am not the most tech savvy although I have a lot of gadgets) and that I could monitor how much climbing I did on the day. It is such a great feature and just adds to the quality of these watches. With this instrument I can obtain all the training info a lone athlete could ever ask for, it measures heart rate, maximum, average etc as well as speed, cadence , distance etc.
As you will see from the graphs it will now show total ascent only from 5 June onwards, but expect to see some impressive figures next week plus some crazy ones when I am in South Africa, I am being led to believe that I will feel like a real mountain goat when the training week is done!
To all readers, friends and mtb enthusiasts, keep coming back.
Enjoy the week!
Vlieg Noord.
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