Weekend Ride

Firstly apologies for the lack of blogging last week, a combination of working a few late ones but also I backed off my training for a week. After my second game of footy on Wednesday I could barely walk without an agonising pain in both my shins. A bit of google research and I came up with these: shin splints :o( Ok so I'm no Doctor but what I was feeling pretty matched their description. The main remedy for these is rest. Not good when you're training for the Alpe D'Huez but I took it as an opportunity to put my feet up. Note: Andy has still been getting out loads!

So we planned a three hour jaunt for Saturday meeting at Andy's. We set off into Bromsgrove and headed for Droitwich. I'll add in here, that we learnt on the London Paris trip last year that 1. The French Roads are lovely, smooth, no pot-holes, and are never dug up and filled with inferior tarmac & 2. French Drivers respect and expect cyclists, give them room and politely pap their horn when they are about to overtake. The UK has neither of these so we choose to head out on the quieter main roads as the country lanes we've been training on are getting very cut up.

So...Bromsgrove to Droitwich on the A38. Not too bad, a couple of short stabbing climbs but nothing too taxing. I read last week that a good training tip for the Alpe is to attack any climb whilst training in a lower than normal gear and pedal at 90rpm - yeah, you try that when you're out next, I nearly bloody died! My heart was jumping out of my chest for the next ten minutes. I'll stick to big leg muscle power for now. Right, Droitwich to Kidderminster was nice. Saturday here was roasting and this road is shaded so kept the heat off. Then we headed the back route to Hagley which has a couple of fairly big hills and we were about an hour into the ride by now. Then we hit Hagley. From here we could've turned left straight back to Chez Millerz but in front of us were the mighty Clent Hills. We had to, just had to. So we hit the hill up to Hagley Top, then the A456 past the obelisk and Badgers Set pub. What a climb!!!!! Steadied ourselves for about a K and then took the country lane right onto the top of Clent. We then did Walton Hill before heading back down to the M5 and the North Part of Bromsgrove. "One more hill?" cherps Andy!?!?!, well why not! So we powered (like that nice positive vocab?) up onto the lop of Lickey before the downhill to his house. What a ride. Quite possibly the best we've done yet I think. The stats: I think it was about 53K's but the hills made up for the shortened distance. We did that in about 2 1/4hrs. And did I mention it was hot, very hot.

So, onward and upward. I might sneak out for a quick hour this afternoon if I can but I'm defo (big bro reference!) going to take it a bit easier at football this week. I think we'll have to get one last ride in before Andy heads off on his hols next weekend.

Sponsorship is going well, almost £100 online, Mrs Millerz got us over £100 at work on Friday and we've had a fair few promises too. We've got our fuel expenses covered, are trying for a minibus but no news on shirt sponsorship yet so if you are interested, get in touch.

Happy Cycling!

Hammy