An up-and-down weekend, or to be more accurate, a down-and-up weekend.
Finally blessed with some dry weather, it was a good weekend to get on the bike. On Saturday I drove to Richmond Park to have a ride with Emily (who is also signed up for the Etape - did I mention that? No? Oh...) and complete a 3-lap time trial to see if all the work on the turbo trainer had paid off.
Unfortunately, after a leisurely warm-up lap, I had to abandon towards the end of the 2nd lap with a bad cramp in my right hamstring. Felt like a waste of the great conditions.
Today the hamstring felt fine, so I took the incredibly brave decision to man up and embark on a ride down to Surrey. Felt good until the hamstring started to twinge after the climb up to the Epsom downs. I was riding with my saddle 5mm lower to see if that was the problem (having raised it a couple of months ago by the same amount), but that had apparently made no difference, so I tried to analyse what I was doing on the bike to see if I could spot the problem.
It didn't take long. I realised that after an out-of-the-saddle effort, I was trying to give more comfort to my calves by cycling with my knees sticking out. Essentially, I looked like this:
Once I moved my knees into line, everything felt fine. Need to study David Millar's technique more.
Main climbs today were Ranmore, Crocknorth Rd and Box Hill. The output from my HR monitor showed that I paced these climbs just right.
Stats for the ride were:
Distance: 89km
Time: 3:48 (was desperate to get under 4hrs)
Average Speed: 23.3km/h
Total Climbing: 1,373m
Really happy with this effort. Even a puncture at the top of Box couldn't put a downer on the day.
As a footnote, Santa visited me during the week with a late Christmas present. I have been a good boy:
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