Sunday
Fathers Day = A rare sleep in. There’s present hunting once the kids wake up you know. My Wife is still very ill so after missing the dedicated 6am-ers (pre)Fathers Day ride yesterday I found myself having to forfeit riding all together this weekend. Family matters always take precedent as they should rightly do. I’ll just get back into it tomorrow & if I can get up early enough I’ll extend the E1 commute to 2hrs in the morning hopefully.
Monday
Morning Ride: No extended commute this morning. I thought it better to creep back into the new months training block, actually there was probably a bit of the CBF syndrome thrown in as well. Although my legs felt fantastic after the recovery week & forced 2 days of no riding.
Afternoon Ride: It was fantastic to ride home in glorious 20′C spring sunshine although having my thermo-(nuclear) winter jacket from the morning as the only thing to wear had me soaked in sweat by the time I got home.
Distance: 58kms, Time: 1:52hrs & Elevation Gain of 452mtrs.
Tuesday
Morning Ride: The 6am-ers Hurtbox was pretty uneventful compared to last week. We welcomed back Foggy after returning from his QLD holiday although he soon got a rude awakening with being reacquainted with the typical cooler climatic conditions of down South. The ride may have started off in balmy temperature but by the time we had finished the cool southerly change had started to bite.
Afternoon Ride:My commute home was super-fast tonight. It was a combination of a nice taily and feeling fresh and motivated. Not sure what my best ever PB is for this ride but a sub-55min would be top 5 if not better, not that I usually race for PB’s on my commutes it just happens from time to time.
Wednesday
Interestingly there was a lot of talk on the twitter waves leading up to this weeks NRRL. Someone who still remains anonymous to many, including me, has taken it upon themselves to try & own one of Melbourne’s longest running mid-week social / training rides. It all started on the Sunday prior with tweets from this new twitter user North Road Ride who tweeted this;
North Road Ride Wednesday to split. From 7th Sep: 545 = 2Bays, 6am = Mordy. Pls RT, tell your mates. #NRRsplit #SafeRiding
Which was later backed up with this after many questioned why?
#NRR Wednesday group split initiated in response to concerns expressed about deteriorating situation on Nepean Hwy #SafeRiding
Now I am not against this suggestion as the ride is getting so large that it has become quite unwieldy in recent weeks. But it was interesting to see the response come Wednesday as from what I could tell it didn’t really effect numbers or the attitude of the riders who still went long from the NRR 6am bunch. It was still 50 riders strong & in single file as they swept up myself & Trento “SprintDemon” coming through Edithvale. Then on the return leg it once again become a survival of the fittest with most just sucking wheels just to hang on. I heard later the 5:45am NRRL bunch had around 25 riders but have not had it confirmed by any of it’s participants.
Anyway back to my ride in the 6am NRRL, it’s funny how once changes are suggested you all of a sudden take the time to reflect & view a different perspective on something you previously thought was just routine. For the first time I actually felt this ride gave me no real training benefit, added to this was some of the riding etiquette I witnessed this week left a lot to be desired. It would later lead me to email my 6am-ers team-mates suggesting we do our own NRRL at a later time to maximise our precious training time & get in a better quality session. The added benefit will be that with only 5-6 riders it should be a lot less of an issue for other road users as well.
Then to top it all off one of the best & most respected (local) cycling blogs Cycling Tips also wrote a piece this week about the issues facing Beach Road rides of late. I just hope something good comes from all of this as I would hate to see it degenerate further & potentially have us loose such an iconic ride in this state. But for now I am done with the NRR Long as I’ll be doing a version of it with my own smaller 6am-ers bunch, so if you see us say G’day, give us a wave or a toot as you drive by.
Thursday
Little did I know today would be my last ride of the week. I was only going to be able to ride home from work anyway given I had a site visit already planned for the morning which meant I had to leave early in the work car & head up to Mt St Leonard. Pity I couldn’t ride to the top as it was a spectacular climb with a magnificent view.
So it was a simple commute home that evening that ended my first week of the second building block of my Journey to Warny.
Distance: 28kms, Time: 1:00hrs & Elevation Gain of 284mtrs.
Friday
What a complete wash-out!!! My only opportunity to ride was to commute to work in the morning as I had to bring the work car home that night. I had a Velo session planned & was really hoping the weather would hold out till at least mid-morning. But the pelting rain that was hammering our roof for most of the night & early morning meant I would not even get to suit up, it was just too wet & dangerous for me to be out on the road.
Kudos goes to my team-mate Brenton “BigHorn” Kaitler for showing true commitment to sticking to his training plan by smashing out his intervals at the Hawthorn Velo or should I say Hawthorn Pool on Friday morning. Top Effort Champ!!!
Saturday
I’ve been sitting here all-day with fingers, toes, legs & arms crossed wishing that the weather is good enough to get out on our traditional 6am-ers Sunday. I am really excited as we are doing a ride I & many other newer 6am-ers have never done before, heading all the way out to Toolangi & back. It should be a great ride after I ironically saw most of it by car during my site visit on Thursday. It’ll be about 150km round trip for me which will be just what the doctor ordered given the riding I missed this week.
Week 6 Totals
Distance = 266 kms
Ride Time = 8:17 hrs
Elevation Gain = 1,837 mtrs
Damn I actually thought these posts would get smaller each week.
Maybe it’s time for twice weekly posts now, even daily or on the days that I ride.
What do you the readers think or do you have any other better ideas?
