Current mood:

fookin' knackered mate

The week just gone
Miles biked: 60½
Lengths swum: 28 (odd-numbered targets don't work all that well because I feel like such an idiot walking the length of the pool to get back to where I started, when I could just swim it)
Maximum speed: 41 mph
Targets: 50 miles and 27 lengths. This is why I won't get too hung up on the odd bad week, as long as there aren't consecutive bad weeks.

>50 of the miles were travelled in one day on a mammoth bike ride, because I hadn't done very much travelling anywhere at all during the week, and was car-bound on Saturday.

Over the past few weeks I've been trying to get in the habit of doing a short (half hour or so without breaks that aren't imposed by red lights) circuit before I start work in the morning, on days when I don't expect to get on the bike for practical transport purposes. In theory North Park -> South Park should be ideal, as they're full of trees, have little traffic, have many connecting streets so I can choose how far to go, and the route avoids all left turns (long traffic-imposed breaks...). Oh, and it's gently uphill on the way out, so I get some exercise and then have a fun fast ride home. The trouble is that the road surface of North Park is poor, and South Park is a complete disgrace. I think that maybe North Park -> Shaker Blvd would be better, because Shaker doesn't seem to have much traffic at the time I go (usually leaving at about 9, so after the morning rush hour), and it's in much better shape.

Anyway, this week I only did this once, for various reasons, so I had only racked up 9½ miles up to this morning. So I decided to get ambitious. Here is the route I took, which was fairly close to the one I planned:

Shaker -> Gates Mills -> Cedar -> Chagrin River Road -> pointless climb on Old Mill because I misread the map -> fantastic descent of Mayfield (where I hit 41 and could have gone faster if I had the guts) -> Chagrin River -> lunch stop in Willoughby town centre (maybe it's just because I'd worked up such an appetite, but the food and juice at Johnny Mango was wonderful) -> Lakeshore Blvd -> E. 222^nd -> Tracy -> E. 185^th -> Nottingham -> Euclid Creek Reservation -> Mayfield -> S. Taylor -> Cedar -> Coventry -> home

Up to the lunch break, this was the best day of riding I've done since New Zealand. The roads were quiet and pretty, Gates Mills is a really fun road to race down, and the Chagrin River valley gets quite spectacular in places. I've been unfair to Cleveland in talking like there are no hills or scenery around - you only have to get to the Eastern or Southern edges of its sprawl to get some nice rolling hills.

After lunch, not so good. Partly because I was just on much more urban roads (though the Euclid Creek Reservation is lovely), but mainly because I was getting too tired. I'm evidently not yet fit enough to enjoy a 50-mile day at this point. I'm no more upset than I am surprised by this, but I am going to have to take it into account. I need to make sure I actually do the short weekday rides I was talking about above, every day. That way I'll have a reasonable amount to do on the weekend's big ride, and be able to enjoy the whole thing.

Next week's targets: 55 miles and 28 lengths.