How Lane Mad ;o)

Today I decided to go out on the bike. The reasons behind this werew twofold. One - I'm training for a triathlon, and two - I wanted to see if I could climb the first nasty hill in London to Brighton when there weren't a load of people getting in the way. The hill's in Coulsdon, only about five miles from me (hadn't realised it was that near), and is in a road called "How Lane", hence the title of this post. be grateful - the alternative pun was "How Lane..has this been going on?". By Ace, for those who don't remember, with lead singer Paul Carrack, who was in Mike and the Mechanics. But enough pop anoraking!

The third purpose (nearly forgot) was to see if the new battery in the Garmin made any difference. it failed spectacularly before the end of my road, so my conclusion is a hesitant "no". Then again, it did seem to pick up the HR for more of the ride than usual, even though there were plenty of times it dropped it. Oddly, the figures show something all the way through, so who knows. I've upgraded the software, so we'll see what happens when I run tomorrow!

Anyway - the ride! Here's the route I took:

It starts with quite a climb up to Banstead, and is then followed by a nice downhill (on narrow roads) to Coulsdon, and then that beast of a climb. I wasn't helped by the fact that two cars turned into How Lane just ahead of me, and proceeded to bollox up their gears on the first corner, thus slowing me down too. I kept going though (no clips on the shoes until I know I can do the hill, as that would be worrying), and then pushed on. My HR quickly hit 178bpm, and the hill just kept on coming. Every time I thought it was over, I went round a slight bend to see more hill stretching ahead of me! The speed dropped to 6mph, and my cadence was about 75, but I left off dropping down a gear until as late as I could manage it as my legs felt not too lacticky. In the end I only had to drop down once after the initial drop to the smallest ring at the front, and in the end had two gears to spare. There came a point where the slope got less, even though it was still a hill, and although there was another couple of hundred yards like this, I knew I'd beaten it!

The next bit is downhill, so I relaxed and enjoyed it, and then there's what seemed like a slight uphill that felt easy, but oddly enough on the return journey (I missed my turning!), I realised just how steep it was. Compared to How Lane though it was peanuts!

I then turned down White Lane, which was a narrow, twisty, not terribly even road, and I scared myself as I had to swing wide on a couple of bends, and if there had been a car coming the other way, it could have got messy! This wended its way onwards, and eventually I came out on the A217. This is a nasty bit oof the ride, and one I'd ideally like to cut out. Still - I climbed the hill (small ring again), and then turned off to come down skirting Epsom Downs. There's a wonderful Hill down here, that was my top speed hill until London to Brighton. Today I decided to welly it, and spite of having to stop 200 yards after the start due to red lights, I still maxxed out at 42.3mph. I think I touched 42.4 on London to Brighton, so not quite a top speed. All done without cycling shoes though. The best thing is that this is good quality, not too bendy road, so unless a wheel buckles it's safe. Must go back and see if I can top 45mph!

After that I'd decided to do 28 miles rather than just 20 as originally planned, as tht's a quarter Ironman distance. My bike computer says 28 miles, even though the data from the Garmin is a smidge short. In the end I looped all over the place to make up the distance, plus I got hopelessly lost trying to get through Stoneleigh! I even got another puncture just two hundrd yards from home! I'm hoping that this is just rotten luck (at least it wasn't far to push, and I did have kit to fix it this time had it happened further away), rather than any problem with my tyre fixing technique. I haven't looked at it yet - will do it after a swim at the gym!

Anyway - here's the heart rate figures - slightly disappointed that the average isn't lower - the hills will put it up, so I guess most of the time it's probably below 130.

Weight has dropped, but only to 91kgs. I've decided to try to pretend I never lost that kilogram, but I can't help but feel I've done the work to get down to 90kgs already, and don't fully understand it - I did have a big lunch Sunday, but that was my only blow out, and it wasn't *that* huge. I've done a lot of exercise too, so I feel like I'm owed!