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Rachael recovering from London

Rachael recovering from London


I am sat in my garden with a cup of tea and my laptop making hay while the sun shines wondering how am I going to cram everything in to this month’s blog – I don’t know where to start!  I am also noticing my legs are two shades of freckle……. wait my arms and face too.  I have cycling tan lines.

 

Having taken a few days off to recover from the London Marathon once my quads would allow me to get off the floor without squealing in laughter and pain coupled with lots of torturous foam rolling and a gentle recovery run (how on earth did I manage 26.2 when 1 mile had me gasping for air), it was time to get on the bike for the clubs once a month lady’s only ride on a steady 40-mile round trip to a coffee shop in Ely. There was a lot of catching up to do, lots of laughing, eating cake and sipping on coffee alfresco while foot tapping to the sound of the busker playing his rendition of Ring of Fire in the market square bandstand.  As we headed out of Ely we stopped for a group photo outside the cathedral amongst the hustle of the Eel Festival and as we rode away received a clap and a cheer by a group of ladies in support of us being an all ladies group ride, meanwhile somewhere in the fens, the men were out getting up to all sorts!

The following week was the big one, Bills 105 mile ride just for fun. The countless checking on Facebook for updates on the cycling clubs page on who was wearing what, legs out or legs covered!  If we go back to Gary’s blog last month, to shave or not to shave became a topic of serious and jovial discussion … for the men!  If you don’t shave you risk becoming a host for greenfly in your nest of leg hair and if you do shave it’s all about those marginal gains but the point still hasn’t been answered on any post, legs out or legs covered and it turns into a cycle… (pun intended) of more leg pulling (pun intended) on both sides of the male camp.  We all gather at our usual Sunday meeting point at 8.30am, and with 2 live Facebook videos, 26 men and myself we head out through Cambridgeshire and into Nelsons County stopping off for a refuel at mile 50 and then at a riverside pub around mile 75. The distance wasn’t for everyone as riders peeled off at certain points and on the last stretch home the remainder of us hit a headwind in all directions for around 10 miles that seemed to be having a laugh at our expense wafting the smell of a pub serving a Sunday Carvery mixed with the aroma of draft ale.  We made it home dreaming of food, 101 miles on Strava, 105 in reality door to door.

Training resumed with midweek rides both in the club and solo in preparation for the Swanton Morley Norfolk Spring Classic, a no frills sportive supporting Cyclists Fighting Cancer with distances of, 20, 50, 75 and 100 miles with a snazzy medal at the end.  There were moments while driving to Norfolk at 6am where we all thought about turning back as the rain poured down but by 8am it had subsided ready for 500 Lycra clad men, women and kids to take off from the start line in waves to complete their chosen course distance.  What made this event so exciting was the fact that there were families out on their bikes, kids riding with their friends, disability riders, female riders and riders of all ages taking part and this made me so happy, cycling makes me happy!!  What made it even more exciting was spotting a lady wearing a Primal Route 66 Jersey so apologising as I shuffle in my cleats to her as she was mid bite of her coffee and walnut cake and with her permission took a ‘Spotted in Primal’ selfie…could we make this a thing?!!!  I  had wanted to complete the 100 mile course but after lap 2 at 50 miles Matt and Grahams legs had had enough of the undulating inclines, (remember they’re no longer called hills after Devon) so with a bit of coaxing (the flutter of the eyelids didn’t work) I managed to convince them to complete another 25 miles and I was even prepared to do all the work up the lumpy bits while they sat on my wheel until Matt decided once at the top of the longest incline to blast past me with a ‘cheers’ !!!! Thus, has cemented his new nickname firmly within the cycling club, all in good humour of course!  While the roads by this point were drying out the descent through the little gravelly single track tree lined lanes made it a little challenging and so with 75 miles on the clock we headed to back to the feed station base for a shoulder massage and a double expresso before we called it a day.  Once home and checking Strava I was jumping around happy as a bean to find that I had a QOM (my 5th this month) for the fastest female over 25 miles on loop 2 for a few hours until someone else took the spot. 

My last big training ride was a club recce in preparation for 4th June where I will be riding in the Golazo UCI Tour of Cambridgeshire Gran Fondo.  An 80-mile closed road cycling event in my neck of the woods with around 10,000 riders taking part in either the ride, race or time trial event.  Many of us felt this training ride was harder than Bills 105 miles 2 weeks earlier.  Was it because we were riding flat out in the first half? Was it the humid and hilly middle section, or the ‘headwind in all directions, always’, in the third stage? Either way I loved it, it was hard but that’s what makes it so great.

Annoyingly though all of this has happened at the wrong time in the month as I oversee the 3 teams with a total of 21 participants and captain my own team of 7 to get around the world in 100 days in the Virgin Pulse Global Corporate Challenge.  So now that training for the marathon is out of the way all I want to do is ride my bicycle and I can……

 

That’s all for now until next month…..