Today was a mixed day in all reality, giving me a heavy dose of reality. I went for a ride through East Lothian with Trevor Laffin (another TdF lifer). This was in all reality my first serious ride to put some decent miles in my legs and fortunately we had great weather.
All in all it was a good day, enjoyable and tough (for me at least). More importantly it gave me the main thing I have been lacking so far, a benchmark of where I am, being the first ride along with serous cyclists. Fortunately for me, Trevor wasn’t out for a day really pushing it as he had the Tour of East Lothian ride the following day. The reason I say “fortunate for me” is because I struggled to keep up the pace, particularly (but not exclusively) when it came to hills. When I say hills I am sure regular cyclists probably just say small inclines, Trevor avoided some of the more serious hills he’d normally include.
As a rough estimate I reckon I am probably in the region of being 2/3 the pace I currently should be. This is based on Trevor’s estimate before the ride that, including stops, should take about four to four and a half hours. With me along it took about six hours. To top it all, because Trevor was riding well within himself he looked ready to do another ride, I felt wrecked.
This has left me feeling very concerned about the scale of the challenge I have undertaken. I know that it is just a sign that I have to do a serious amount more training but I do wonder if I can go from not a cyclist to a serious cyclist in such a short period of time.
Thanks to Trevor though for being patient with me. Hopefully next time we go out ill not hold you up quite so much.
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