A Step Too Far?

Todays Training Stats: Box Hill Loop

I think today, in a bid to check if I was gonna have any chance of doing the Hampshire Hilly Hundred this weekend, I may have pushed myself a bit far...we'll have to see how I come up tomorrow, but right now I feel pretty tired and a bit sore.

It's obviously a combination of still being in recovery from the flu, and having lost a bit of fitness from the training I've missed. However, I wanted to spend some proper time on the bike to see how I was really feeling, and I guess in that aim I've had a kind of 'success', by discovering that I don't feel great!

I decided to do a 45 mile loop down to Box Hill, to get a few more miles in the legs than yesterday, and also get a bit of hill-work in - something which I feel has been a bit lacking in my training so far. It was a really nice ride, beautiful countryside, pretty good weather and my Garmin navigating perfectly, so completely stress-free.

I actually approached Box Hill the 'back' way - cos that's the route that I'd downloaded off Bikely - and this way the climbing's done more gradually - which today at least suited me perfectly. However, I was surprised to find that there was another short, sharp climb (20%!) just after I'd come down off Box Hill, past Westhumble. It wasn't particularly long, but I was pleased that in my slightly fragile state at the moment I wasn't tempted to walk it. Luckily it was quiet, so I could use the full width of the road to zig-zag slightly, and it was encouraging that once I'd got into a rhythm, my legs were up to it, even if my lungs were struggling.

That's about as good as it got though, because the last 15 miles or so were a bit of a struggle. The limiting factor was pretty bad soreness in my quads, which I don't think would have been a problem a couple of weeks ago. I think I'd been fuelling properly - 3 gels including 1 smart gel in a 3 hour ride, and I'd drunk quite a lot of GO and PSP22, so I guess it's just a natural drop-off in fitness. 

Like yesterday, my heart rate was still 15-20 bpm higher than it would normally be for a given level of effort, and for that reason, at the moment I'm feeling like I'll probably give the Hampshire Hilly Hundred a miss. I've still got a couple more days to decide though, and until then I'll treat the rest of the week as a normal training week I guess.