Monday 6 January 2014

Should have taken a boat - rain, wind and hail - fields now lakes!

The weather has been awful but I was determined to get out on the bike during the week. Chris, my close neighbour and training buddy was 'game on' and suggested we take the mountain bikes out but keep mostly to the roads and main paths. Even though it wasn't raining as we left the house we were soaked within minutes just from the surface water on the roads.

The draw of the South Downs was too much and after a steep ascent we decided to take the South Downs Way down into Amberley. Once at the top we had about a 2-3km nice downhill stretch, which normally we power down at a reasonable speed - Not this time...

We hit a hail storm, which was so heavy it felt like we were going backwards! downhill!

We could hardly see more than a foot infront of us, the frozen ice was stinging our faces and it was very hard to keep upright in the strong winds. It was so extreme we simply had to laugh - we were mad being out in this weather!

When we hit Amberley the fields had turned into lakes, with waves! Amberley Castle now had a moat - it was an amazing sight.

We finally got home soaked to the skins but somehow pleased we had made the effort. After washing down the bike (more water) and a quick lube of the chain I was ready for a much needed shower. I was so mucky my wife insisted I strip out of my wet muddy clothes by the washing machine before going upstairs to the bathroom.

Chris pictured in a field at Amberley

That was Friday. Saturday was a Club swim - 'Brownlee style' - a long warm up with drills, 4x 50m build set, and then a main set of 5x 100m (repeated twice) at increasing pace.
Sunday, I wanted to get in another long run, as that was my focus for the week. It was a better morning (see below), albeit very icy underfoot. The plan was to keep the pace nice and easy so I would not need more than a single recovery day. I managed 21km in just under 2 hours, which brought the total training time to around 9 hours.

A beautiful morning - well at least for a couple of hours

So back in the office this morning (now Monday 6th) and desperate for a green smoothie after all the rich food of the last fortnight!

Back to the green smoothie - banana, spinach, carrot, pineapple and natural yoghurt


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