Fantasy versus Reality

So I've been ill most of the week and I had always planned Saturday to be the first session of the week as I should be OK by then. I'm still a little blocked up and coughing but it was a great day in that it was minus 3 and the sun was shining and not a cloud in the sky. Days like this rarely coincide with a weekend so something needed to be done.

I've just finished a great cycling book, "The Beautiful Machine" by Graeme Fife and it inspired me to literally get on my bike. I even wrote a review on Amazon...

My new 'racing' bike is due for delivery on Tuesday/Wednesday next week, so I thought I'd try a 20km ride on my mountain bike on the road. Then I can do a back to back test on the new bike and see how much better my investment makes me as a cyclist. I bought the Mountain Bike in Germany a few years ago and its hardly ever been used if I'm being honest. Its more of a Tiger tank than a racing bike as it weighs in at a rather chubby 14kg. Thats nearly twice as heavy as my new bike and the tires as you can see are more suited for Belgian mud than sleek Swiss tarmac. It does have 24 gears though....and I successfully adjusted the gear change this morning as the highest chainset at the front wasn't engaging. I didn't know how before and therefore its been like that for a few years , I had recently bought and read a bike maintainance book and it was easy enough to fix. I can hear Gavin and Brian laughing at my new found mechanical genius in being able to adjust a gear cable.

I knew the route to take and had actually ran it before when I was training for my half marathon in Sept last year. Its got quite a few hills on it and its a reasonably busy road through a few local villages.

I'm out and off, as you know I've just been training indoors on an exercise bike at the gym and a few people have been saying its nothing like riding a bike and I'm wasting my time. Now I'm no expert on cycling given I've only ever owned 3 bikes in my life(Raleigh Chico, BMX and Mountain bike above), however if 10-15 hours a week on an exercise bike is good enough for Chris Hoy then its OK for me.

First 4km were strange, you certainly get a much clearer image of how poorly the roads in Belgium are maintained...where does my 55% tax go. The traffic is also a little unsettling, however Belgian's appear to be quite tolerant of cycling given its a national sport. At 4.5km mark I have the big hedgehog hill to take on. Its every bit as painful on a bike as it is running. I think being on the bike makes you a little too aggressive as you expect to be going faster than you run, its not easy to achieve that going up a very steep hill.

At 10km I'm up the two worst hills now but the saddle is starting to change from a support to a torture device. Its a pretty aggressive racing type saddle and at this point I think its trying to actually become part of me via a process of osmosis. This process is unfortunately painful and very uncomfortable in a rather delicate area.

At 15km all the romance of the cycling books has been forgotten. I'm struggling with the bike, my neck, my back and my lungs are starting to bring up all my unwellness from the previous week. The heroic half idea I had of a 10km run after this cycle ride is tossed aside without a second of guilt. I just need to get home and lie down. I'm clearly out of my depth and the thought of doing 90km is actually totally unimaginaginable at this stage. I finish the 20k in 56 minutes and 26 seconds and am pretty whacked. Its about as tiring as a 20K run and the only positive thing is that it takes half the time.

Exercise wise it felt on a par with a fast 20k on the bike in the gym using the mountain program with some sprints thrown in. The timings are also similar. So I think I'm vindicated in my previous indoor training. In fact it may actually be a little easier on the real thing.

Now I know the new bike weighs half the mountain bike and the tyres will make a faster run easier. The problem is that the saddle will continue to try and split me down the middle and I still have another 70km to do on top of the 20km I just did. Then of course I need to get off the bike and run a half marathon....What the hell was I thinking...Too much reading not enough training....

I'm hoping the mixture of wrong bike, no training for 5 days and not fully recovered from my Man-Flu is the cause. I'm glad I did it though and after a shower I felt great.....honestly I did...