Training Log Archive: AC

Having been up half the night with a touch of food poisoning, I didn't expect to be out training today. But was feeling much better after lunch and decided to head out for an easy spin in the countryside. Out to Versailles and then to Magny-les-Hameaux. Head wind on the way out meant a lovely tailwind on the way home. Quite an up and down ride and didn't push it on the hills, but just tried to keep it steady and then keep up a good pace on the flats. This seemed to work okay, but unfortunately my bike computer ran out of juice after an hour so was just guessing from then (the Strava app on my phone logged the ride quite nicely but of course I couldn't see it while riding. Cool (13 deg) and cloudy but a nice ride, helped by very light traffic due to the Easter weekend.

Late night but still managed to rouse myself for a morning ride. Quite a tired effort on a grey morning. But good to be out there and to knock off a ride before my day off (Good Friday is, bizarrely, not a public holiday in France, so have taken a day's leave to spend with F, who is on school hols).

A short quick run between meetings. Cooler day, but still lovely for running. Did one of my standard courses that is a very nice little circuit. Strava tells me it is the fastest pace for this particular loop out of 11 times, so must be gettng fitter. Not quite a constant pace because I stopped twice to have a quick chat with colleagues I bumped into out in the woods, and once for a major traffic crossing. These were welcome breaks! Good run.

Just achieved a major milestone on a huge project so pressure was off for the day, so took advantage and headed down to Longchamp for a hard ride in the sun. Slightly windy and cool-ish so still needed long sleeves, but was able to get some sun on my very white legs! Was cruising around waiting for a peleton to catch up to me, and was passed by a young woman tapping out a nice rhythm. So latched on and went with her for a couple of laps. Perfect pace for me - fast enough to be working hard but not so hard that I was struggling. Then a large peleton caught us both and the pace was on! I slotted in to the middle of the group and it was very fast (averaging over 40km/hr). It was quite disciplined in terms of peeling off the front after short turns. I did my bit and then pulled off to slide gently down to the tail of the group, but I mis-judged and slackened off too much, so that the group just took off and there was no way for me to chase and get back on to the back. Didn't even last a lap with this group! So watched them disappear very quickly Had a bit of a breather and then dropped in behind a triathlete who was down on the tri-bars but doing a more reasonable pace. Glad to call it a day though after a few more laps. Good solid ride though.

Warm up - felt pretty good. It wasn't to last :-)

First go at a Mona set for quite a long time. Started out fine but then I never really managed to hold a decent pace during the slower parts of the session. So was quite a way from my previous best of 4.3km. Wasn't helped by the fact that the last few minutes was grinding up a climb from Longchamp. Need to choose my course a little better for this type of session!

Easy jog back to work. Legs feeling crunched.