A steady paced ride at 90-95rpm with company.
Ride with a friend and chat as you go along. This will check your breathing. Remember to ride together and not to race each other.
I've had another shuffle around with the programme and took yesterday as a rest day and rode today.
I did the same route as Saturday because a) it's my favourite and b) I wanted to see if I could improve on my slightly disappointing time.
I started off with rather heavy legs again. It wasn't exactly a morning ride in terms of it being a 9am job like Saturday but it was before lunch. I made sure I had some high energy snacks (homemade energy flapjack and salami) before I went but still found it fairly hard going on the first (and only) hill out of my village.
I felt a bit frustrated by this and decided I needed to get the negative thoughts out of my head and try harder. I got my head down and really, really went for it.
It made a real difference. I whizzed along and began to really enjoy myself again. Whilst whizzing along something really great happened - I overtook two other cyclists! I was really pleased with myself. I've never felt confident enough to do this before but on this occasion I knew I could do it. I was behind them for a little while and really felt they were holding me back . I knew I could go faster and I was right! This totally changed my outlook for the rest of the ride. I sped along and was determined to do the ride in a good time.
However, my efforts were slightly thwarted when I got stuck behind about 20 vintage road bikes being ridden by 20 vintage gentlemen!! I was stuck behind them for a good 5-7 minutes with no real idea of how to get past them.
Despite this I knocked 5 minutes off Saturday's time and 3 minutes off the first time I did this route. I'm convinced had it not been for the Gentlemen's Vintage Club I would have knocked even more time off.
Any tips on overtaking large groups would be gratefully received!
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