Day 7 Rest Day

Evening all...

Been an interesting rest day, at the rather luxurious Holiday Inn here at Haydock park.  It is now 2105 as I sit alone in the bar with a pint of Wife beater waiting for food. I am not that hungry (I know some of you wont beleive me) but I feel I need some food before back to riding tomorrow. We have an 80 plus mile route tomorrow; the weather for wednesday and Thursday is strong head winds so we might take advantage of the conditions tomorrow...

I also need to be a GOM sohere goes.

Price Rises at the Hotel!

Last night a pint of stella was £4.00. Expensive but yeswe are in a hotel, Cheese board as a desert was £5.40

Tonight the  same cheese board was £6.10!! WTF!!  The same beer was £4.50 WTF  Apparently they apply business rates during Monday to Thursday....  Not only that the cheese board arrived with two small pieces of cheese and ten biscuists! no where enough cheese to cover the biscuirts :(

So us non business types who ahve to pay out of our own pocket rather than corporate expesnises are made to suffer.WTF Fecking hell and all that malarky!!

Rant over!!

So what did I do today?

We had a few beers in the bar last night and ate before hitting the sheets. By ten I was in bed eyes closed as my room mate Chet was on his lap top.

Woke up early and went down for breakfast at ~830 for a good nosh up! Had fruit salad to begin with before having a good English Breakfast. Sausages tasted of meat, the bacon was meat rather than fat, the black pudding seemed almost real, and the tomatoes lightly grilled.  Tea and coffee was consumed..

At ten we were on our way to the launderette (Well some of us) to do some admin before walking the local shops, I was able to replace my flip flops tht gave way at Glencoe, and PAt was able to get his rather improtant brakepads replaced!

And then it was backto the hotel to finish the washing and an after noon of shear laziness,,

We watched some TV briefly surfed the net before I suggested to Paul tea/coffee!  We RV'ed in the bar area and had a good chat about all sorts, before agreeing a swim. So after 1600 we met in the pool and swam a few lengths and chatted more, Finally it was 1715 and time for my all body massage for £40 cash. And no "Extras" were offered!!

But Wendy was awesome. Various parts of my anatomy was covered in warm oil and then massaged into my skin, before having hot dap towels/flannels placed over the area. And then runbbed down to remove excess oil...

God it was soooo relaxing, Music was weird almost hypnotic but relaxing, and eased the tensions from the muscles. It also gave me time to ponder,,,

But the massage was truely an experience, that I will repeat!! Guess I will have to arrang eone for Clare tooooooo

So here we are on day 7 a rest day. How have I found the  ride so far?  Overall not as hard as I imagined. But thanks goes to those friends on cyclechat.net for their support; especially on m y 'training rides' tha tI undertook with them, Dr Squirrels' ride in the black mountains (Will be in Hereford Wednesday/Thursday) and Abs and her Olympic Ride organised with other keen London riders.  Combination of my own training, these rides and the votes of confidece that have helped made this week go well.

I am not saying it is plain sailing, it isn't. For me the hardest part of the day (Other than getting up) is after lunch, and knowing we still have 30-40 miles to cover.  These are the longest legs as the legs are cold from the break, Doesnt matter if it is a short break or a longbreak it is hard. But a long break with hot soup (especailly when raining like on Sunday) is a godsend, the soup warming youup from the iside, and the roll offering some carbs.

But soon these periods end, and the ride comes back into play.  We are making good times overaall, and the last couple of days have broken the best  average speed per hour, which is good news. This is probably a combaination of becoming conditioned, and the desire to end the ride! Specificlaly when the weather conditions are adverse.

But i still find myself breaking down hill or on the flat as not to break the 'order or march' This can be annoying. frustrating but  we have six different riders at different levels of experience/training/ability and those on cyclenet know very well we always go at the speed of the slowest person. But it is still hard pyscologiclaly at times

As to the next six day, this will be interesting,. The route from here down to Monmouth and the severn Bridge is essentially the A49 as was a lot of yesterday's ride. A busy road and not much in the way of scenary though I am hoped to be proven wrong. Tomorrow we aim to cover 85 miles maybe more, if conditions are in our favour. But we are booked in the mess at RAF Cosford around 1730 so again we will have that factor to contend with in our ride...

But I am also confident that we can all complete the ride. The next 2-3 days have no major hills to shock us, the route is gentle (ish) rolling country side. As long as we can pick up a sensible tempo of around 13.5 - 15mph happy days....

Well I will now attempt to tidy up theblog slightly

Until tomorow....

Adrian