head down

writing as i wait for a train to take me back to london where i'll be house sitting for another friend for teh next 4 days befroe travelling back to Rutland for the Vitruvian....
i'm currently 'home' in somerset - mum's place, so of course it feels like home. we rub along pretty well, each getting about our business and taking turns on the groceries and shopping. we meet each evening for a quite dinner, some shite tv and this week rather than experimentation with home-made ice cream, its been herbal teas. think mum has been a bit dissapoinetd about that!
this is a great environment for me to just focus on training now that its getting a bit serious (6 weeks 2 Kona!), catching up on sleep and unwinding in my 'own' space with no outside contact. riding familar roads is nice, though as ever i've discoverd a couple of new runs and ride routes this trip.

thi smorning i joined teh local tri club group ride - a 2hr round trip from taunton, round teh back of teh blackdowns to willand for a coffee stop (18 miles in!) befroe heading up onto teh ridge and back down into town. the ride started out steady, with a bit of introductory chat - turns out that a very small proportion of the 2 doz. guys out this morning were actually triathletes. a sign of a good group ride when it's been going week in week out for years and few of the 'core' or founding members are still there. more telling - there were some actual real cyclists out! teh pace picked up a bit and several times i found that i had a hand in my back shoving me along so that i could reconnect with the group as they surged over those damn somerset rollers .i stayed pretty close to the back, but managed to hang in with the pace with the odd hard effort each time i was pinged off on a tight bend or small rise. you may benifit from a lot of draft back there , but you get a hell of a sprint workout each time the group stretches the split is amplified through the bunch. by the time that the rear riders are on a bend/hill the front of teh pack is accelerating away from you! After a coffee teh pace soon rose agein, but i was feeling quite stronga nd pleased so far to have held my own, and a few conversations allong the way ( rather than simply gasping for air!). as we made our way up onto the blackdowns, keeping teh momentum up, i started to notice that my position was nearer teh front rather than teh back...2 hours is a short ride for me, and i'd had a decent breakfast. i was no longer offered a push! the descending back into taunton got a bit silly - for me this is training and not worth risking any crashing, so i hung back on teh lovely switchbacks of balgdon hill. its still fun at 30mph, i really dont need to see 50's on my speedo today! i thought it was really nice that everyone waited at the bottom of teh hill to re group and cruise back into town together. I thanked them for a very enjoyable morning, and set off for another 3 hours over the quantocks. my pace dropped form our average of 19mph to about 16, but the fats start had really set me up for a good ride, and i focused on riding moderately hard all round. i had teh best run off the bike in ages, too.

training wise this week has been a bit up and down. managed about 35 hours in intermittant weather ( apparently the tail end of hurricane Bill)some good and some very poo sessions. on a couple of occaisions i've had my day saved by one of those greasy flapjacks that you can buy in petrol stations. the sort of thing that i really do my best to avoid by carrying around homemade bars and fruit, but it's a revaltion - they sort you right out! makes me wonder if sometimes i'm just inadequtly fueled for the day ....but at the same time, continue to gain weight - which i find ...frustrating.

so next week will be training in london, maybe a chance to catch up with some training mates in london, but since steven is away i'll be home alone with my week-long foster cats, NLP cds and able to keep my head down.....