Well I managed it, I got the bike out of the shed and sat on it for more than 5 minute!
Read on if you’re not eating breakfast….
15 minutes later I was ill, self-induced ill and my body really wasn’t too happy about the 2.5 miles we’d just done, so yeah, I saw Saturday’s breakfast twice. Still, I was fairly determined to do more than 2.5 miles and so we pressed on (cycling with Ben, I say we pressed on, it was mainly me pressing and Ben getting a bit bored following some little fat man who was struggling to make it into double digit mph!). I managed another mile perhaps two before I chugged up again, this time no breakfast but a good litre of water, the water that I had been gulping down earlier trying to keep cool.
The aim of the ride was to where I work, HP in Bracknell and it should be a little over 10 miles from our house. Fairly easy ride, I used to do that kind of distance regularly, 2 years ago. I could not believe how unfit I was. I knew it would be tough but not chucking up tough. After about 5 miles I settled down apart from some seriously bad cramp in my calf’s. As I said the aim was 10 miles to the destination, 20 mile round trip including a stop for lunch and then head home. In the end I knew that if we went for the 10 miles then I was going to really struggle to get home again and so we set a target of 6 miles.
We made the 6 miles and I was feeling well(ish) so we cycled on to a convenient place to turn around, a roundabout. A few miles further on we found a pub had lunch, cycled home and everything was a lot easier for the remaining 4 miles or so, it wasn’t fast but at least I only saw lunch once on Saturday!
On reflection I’m guessing the nasty first few miles were purely down to my body being so unprepared for anything like cycling and I almost certainly started off to quick when I should have tried to ease into the ride but on the plus side as we went on it did feel easier. My aim is to cycle one day at the weekend, gradually increasing the distance and speed and one possibly two regular, shorter evening rides as I’m fairly sure that it is more about frequency then distance. My goal is to get back down to a 32″ waist for the wedding as in truth I don’t really want to be entirely flabby on my wedding night.
So that’s the plan, wish me luck!
Dan
18th August 2008
12:20 pm
Well done for pressing on when tired. I’ve been off the bike 3 weeks now, and don’t really feel inclined to get back on. Maybe I’ll decide this is a great time to fatten up!