Yesterday, I finished the Essex Countryside Bike ride. It was 58miles long. They lied.<\/p>\n
According to my computer, it was 62miles. When the 58mile mark came and went, I was running out of steam. My usual training rides are 15-30miles so this was always going to get hard for me towards the end. But I did it.<\/p>\n
It was looking initially like I would not make it due to having to walk to the start after suffering two punctures at Rayleigh high street. I picked up two bits of glass. The first gave me a puncture. The second did for my replacement tube. The friendly mechanic at the start soon got me on the road though.<\/p>\n
I managed to buddy-up with a local chap named Jason. He did well for most of the way but got his own puncture just after the halfway point. I have to admit that his lack of fitness meant that I kept losing him and waiting for him to catch-up but after about the 45mile mark, I carried on alone. I managed to see him at the end though, so I know he did make it in the end.<\/p>\n
As far as the ride itself goes, there are a few gentle climbs until we hit Danbury where it seems like they stack the hills, one behind the other. There are no Ditchling Beacon style climbs, so I didn’t need my small cog at any stage but it kept the knees working hard for a few miles.<\/p>\n\n
So far it looks like I’ve raised \u00c2\u00a3300<\/a> to help run the Little Haven’s Hospice<\/a>. So I feel good today despite my sore knees and shoulders.<\/p>\n In total yesterday, I cycled 68miles at an average of 14miles\/hour. I so need to get fitter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday, I finished the Essex Countryside Bike ride. It was 58miles long. They lied. According to my computer, it was 62miles. When the 58mile mark came and went, I was running out of steam. My usual training rides are 15-30miles so this was always going to get hard for me towards the end. But I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[115,179],"class_list":["post-125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-essex-countryside","tag-little-havens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/simkin.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/simkin.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/simkin.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simkin.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simkin.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/simkin.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/simkin.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simkin.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simkin.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}