108 not out

I had a reasonable sleep on the flight back but was still a little out of it in Heathrow waiting for the flight back to Brussels. Trying to change money at the BA customer services desk thinking it was Thomas Cook Travel proving the point that I wasn't quite switched on. I managed to stay awake till 23:20 last night to try to get myself into a normal sleep pattern. That was difficult as I was nodding off most of the evening. I woke up the first time around 7am and then at 8:40 I was forced to leap from bed as Team Kennedy manager went downstairs without switching off the house alarm. So its as loud an alarm clock as is imaginable so I was definately up then. A shower and easy breakfast of Museli, two bananas, two expressos and a 350ml sports drink.

I filled my bottles with my sports drink mixes and added some ice. The new bottles are 500ml each so plenty of juice to make sure I avoid the Bonk. I'm mixing my own drinks now using Isostar powder, it seem to be OK if a little sticky and the Orange one stains the plastic bottle. I picked up the map, just in case :O) and my mobile and away I went.

So as promised a big bike ride was on the cards. I had the ton in my sights and I went for it. The approximate route is here as near as I can remember andI did take the odd wrong turn here and there.

The bike computer said total mileage was 108.47km and my legs said it was about 508.47. As ever the first 10K was a little stiff as I was still a bit tired but it was a great day here so once I'd been spinning the legs for half and hour I got into it.

I ticked off the first 25km in about 40 minutes and then sank half a bottle of juice. I was on the Bruxelles-Charleroi canal at 50km and finished the first bottle. I managed to stay on the bike today without any mishap but had a couple of near things at junctions. Once where the foot would not release from the pedal at traffic lights behind some doddery old guy whom I expected to go quicker and I ran out of room and another where I released my left foot as normal but for some reason the bike started falling to the right. Panic and quick release of right foot saving my red face...only just though.

I spent a fair bit of the ride out of the saddle on the hills. I was trying to keep my speed above 20kmph and where it dropped below I was forcing myself to add a couple of gears and stand up. I'd stay up as long as possible then drop a gear as I sat down and hold that as long as possible. I would also sometimes when sitting on a hill go up a gear then down after 20 seconds or so to fool my legs into thinking it was easier...surprisingly it works as a technique even though you know its a trick.

Once I was struggling to keep the pace sitting again I'd drop to the next gear then watch the speed and then repeat the whole exercise till I got to the top. I definately found it easier to stay out of the saddle as the day went on. So the exercise was obviously good practice. I even raced a tractor doing 25kmph. I had to time it right so I could get past and then get the hammer down. I just drafted him for a bit then on a straight added 2 gears and got up and belted away. It was bloody magic :O) I was in the big front chainset for the whole ride so standing was making sure I was staying in the fastest mode possible.

Quite a few folk out on bikes today and I found people ahead would spur me on to catch them and drop them.... :O) I was never caught and dropped the whole day but one guy I caught after a 1km chase and then drafted for about 1.5km as we were going down a big hill dropped me going up the next hill. He was out the saddle and I stayed in and he only drew away slowly and got about 200m on me, enough to show me who was boss though . I was over the 95KM mark at that point and I wasn't driven enough to chase him and he went right and I went left at the next junction...lucky for us both I think.

The last 2km were very hard and I think thats really a mental thing. My legs were literally shaking uncontrollably when I got off. My back was sore and my hands/wrists were sore. I still have a bit of numbness in the two smallest fingers in each hand amd the outside of both wrists is painful to touch. My left hand is the worst of the two.

My 90km time was 3:36 and 100KM time was 3:53. I was 4:15:57 for the whole 108.47km This did not count map reading stops as my bike computer stops the clock when the bike stops. According to my watch I was out for 4:28 in total. I took 250ml of juice every 25KM and didn't really have any issues with energy levels. So average speed os around 25km for the ride. I think now I'd be happy with 3:30 in the bike section of the triathlon. I'll do some hill sprints tomorrow following a tip from Karen on this as a way to add some overall speed.

I did a 5km run as a warm down when I came in and took the dog, effectively dropping her at the 4km mark....she is gettting too fat. 5KM time was a leisurely 29:42 but included stopping twice to put the dogs lead on as there were people out on horses. The first 2km were very stiff and my legs felt like they had changed shape. After that the big hills were hard but not enough to make me stop. I could have ran on and 10K would have been OK but I was more than happy to stop.

I have no pain in my foot from last week and all the damage seems to have been repaired.