Ride 01/11/2025 bun run pt 1
Ride 01/11/2025 bun run pt 2

Well back on the club run after a month off with COVID and the performance damage is very evident 😥😵 I absolutely hate being of ill as the hit to my cycling prowess is immediate and destructive, and this makes it so much harder each time to gain back 😭 Each claw back is harder than the previous one, no thanks to me getting older 😁 but all the same I can really do without it, as just maintaining the fitness is difficult enough as is. So, today’s ride was wet, windy but not too cold but it was still a struggle to keep up with the group, I was either at the back or out the back and chasing back on was taking its toll. They say data doesn’t lie, and if so then the numbers were very worrying, this isn’t to say I won’t get them back but oh boy the hard work that I’m going to have to do is going to suck. As an example the last 2 rides I did with the club at the end of Sep went like this –
27/09/2025 51 miles 18.7 mph 139 avg bpm 167 avg watts
28/09/2025 73 miles 16.4 mph 126 avg bmp 152 avg watts
And today’s ride went like –
01/11/2025 47 miles 16.9 mph 160 avg bpm 155 avg watts
The fact that today my heart rate was through the roof (by my normal standards, just look at the ride data above) for not a very fast ride, not bad speed wise, but not where I was before. And the power I was putting down, again sucks, compared to before where I was a lower heart rate for a better power and speed just goes to prove the hill climb I have ahead and the length of time it’s going to take me to get there. Anyway rant over with 😉 There was 9 of us on the bun run today and like I said it was wet and windy which meant a head wind to begin with to the cafe stop. Suffice to say I was at the back for the entire ride, just doing my best to keep up and not get completely dropped. I made it to the cafe stop for coffee and cake before we headed back. Of course now the sun was out and the rain had abated a bit and we also had a tailwind now. But this is where the hard work would come in, the route back is mostly uphill and for some stupid reason my garmin decided to end the ride just as we were leaving the cafe stop 😕 so a ride of 2 halves it would be. I knew Knockhill was coming up so I was trying to save all my matches for that as I knew I would get hammered there but I was still pretty much put the back most of the way to the bottom of the climb. Anyway I made it to Knockhill and smashed all my matches to keep up with Colin and Iain, I was able to keep up but only at 189 bpm which is pretty much max heart rate for me. Under normal circumstances I would be able to put down more power and sit around 170 bpm which is fine with me, I do that when racing TT’s but now thats a little concerning, so here’s to when that starts to drop to normality. So, 47 miles clocked up at an avg speed of just under 17 mph for the total ride but with an avg heart rate of 160 bpm when it would usually be around 130/140 avg bpm. The one bright side was by the time I got home I wasn’t knackered, tired yes but not in bits and pieces, thank God for small graces 😁