Week begining Mon 28th Feb

Feb 28th  Wandering roung Wigan and Warrington. I needed 36 miles to reach my monthly target of 433 miles so being the last day of February i decided thats at least what i had to go and do. I took it easy really just concentrating on getting the miles in.  Stats - 36.92 miles, 2hr 19 mins, 15.89 average, max 27.65mph, Heart rate max/average 164/139bpm  

Mar 1st  Rivington Hills. I rode out to the Beehive at Horwich intending to meet up with the faster STRAW riders of Lancashire Road Club (of which i am now a member). I thought they met at 9.30am, so when nobody turned up after 10 mins i set off for a little ride arond the hills of Rivington. When i checked the club website the next day it turned out they didn't meet until 10am, so I left before they arrived. Stats - 16.51 miles, 1h 03 mins, 15.59 average, max 33.72mph, Heart rate max/average 178/146bpm  

Mar 3rd  Old Lags Rivi ride.  I took my mate along to introduce him to a club ride and thought the old lags ride would be fine. My fault for not realising that my mate hadnt really done any hill training and the many steep hills on this route quickly wore him out. We lost the club after only 2 miles when my mates chain came off. It took us a further 6 miles to catch them up and we managed to stay with them for a further 7 until little by little they edged away and disapeared. Luckily i had the route saved in my Garmin 705 so we could follow their exact track. We met the crew again at Rivi barn for a brew and some well earned scran. My mate did well to complete the run, he even volunteered the steepest route back to the car which was over Sheephouse lane at Rivington, 15% and he never got off once. Stats - 33.64 miles, 2h 38 mins, 12.71 average, max 34.64mph, Heart rate max/average 170/132bpm  

Mar 5th  Croft speed run. Decided i needed a fast run today and set out to test myself on my usual training run around Croft. The wind was directly behind me for the first 7 miles along the lancs to Lowton and I was averaging 22.5mph. As i turned into the country roads around Croft the wind direction was a bit 50/50 because of the twists and turns of the roads but after a further 7 miles emerging back on the lancs I was still averaging 20.5mph. Directly into the wind now for the 7 miles back home and i really struggled to keep my speed up above 16.5mph although my heart rate was still in the high end of zone 3 or 150-166bpm. I pushed myself  all the way home against the wind and beat my record for this year on this route. Stats - 23.35 miles, 1h 16 mins, 18.38 average, max 30.48mph, Heart rate max/average 175/155bpm  

110.42 miles for this week and 960.08 miles so far this year.