The tragic death of Michael Goolaerts and the broken jaw of Stefan Küng in this year’s Paris-Roubaix put my training, weight and foolish wittering into proper perspective.
RIP, Michael and swift recovery, Stefan.
Congratulations to Peter Sagan for winning the race. Although that was rather overshadowed by the other sad events, what a rider that man is.
Returning to the mundane, more swings and roundabouts last week, with a great trip to the seaside for a long weekend with friends. It’s a tough schedule but someone has to do it.
I’d lost about 5lbs in the first three days last week, and then most of it went back on courtesy of the very good weekend in Bournemouth. Monday was more positive as driving up to (and around) London helping our older son move kept me away from food – so an overall loss of just over 2.5lbs for the week.
A very sociable ride on Saturday along the seafront ticked off the week’s 200km target. We cycled from Hengistbury Head (where a beach hut sold for £275,000 [about $390,000] a couple of years ago) to Sandbanks (once said to be the 4th most expensive place to buy property in the world) but avoided buying anything other than lunch.
At 33km (20.5 miles) in just over 3 hours it was not exactly a white knuckle ride – in fact it rivals a ride in March last year as my slowest ever (and that was accompanying our younger son on a long training run as part of his marathon preparation).
In my defence, if it were needed, the speed limit along the promenade is 10mph and pedestrians have priority. To be honest, it was just great to get out on a bike in a lovely setting, with good friends.
With less than two weeks to go before the WHC sportive, I’m just aiming to get in whatever miles I can this week – and lose whatever weight will come off. Over 200km (125 miles) and over 2kg (4.5lbs) are the rough targets.
The sportive is about 144km with 1862m of climbing, (as I recorded it last year – 89.5 miles and 6,100 feet) so the weight loss is not absolutely crucial, but every little helps.
Today on the turbo – 65km in 1:28:38 at 44kph (40.4 miles at 27.3 mph).
(an Old Man in Lycra) 