It’s great you get to race with your son. You are in the group that I have to “race” the most which leaves me out of the Mains".
I was told we will only be doing local races and state championship races next year since the grandson will be racing his snow skis this year for the local team. Lots of road trips in the mid Atlantic and a long trips to Vermont and New Hampshire.
I got woken up by a WhatsApp at 8.30am, a group of mates were meeting for a ride at 10am. I got up had breakfast and went out for a relaxed 10miles before I met them just to check I wasn’t too jittery. After we met the first 3/4 of the ride to the cafe were pretty full on into a headwind but coming back after was pretty relaxed with a tail wind.
Lol, I rode out to a village fete my mates were helping out at (the burger stand). They had no burgers left but plenty of buns.
Not sure I’ve ever slept that late! Well done!! 
A nice recovery ride for me tonight. I was expecting a Z2 ride leading round the local beginners group. Lol only one person turned up so it ended up more like Z1.
Just when I thought the HR strap was working again it must have dried up from lack of sweat and dropped out. Oh well the replacement is on the way!
It was the correct route for the silver tour. Just that the other way is s bit nicer but both ways provide plenty of nice views and climbs. Did the Gottardo 2 times with a gravelbike but still have to ride it up from the tremola side. Maybe next year 
.
I pressed the button on AIFTP last night. A subtle two-watt bump despite quitting three threshold workouts early thanks to various reasons. It’s been hot for a winter month. I was surprised by the increase, given I thought I was relegated to sub-threshold only until I acclimatise. So today I started early when the air was still cool: “only” 19°C, & did Prater -5, a time crunch workout (which I picked as a bit of a taper before a 300 km audax this weekend). Crushed it. Cooling matters! Managed to fit the 4½’ intervals in on the cycle path between two places where braking would be required, so didn’t have to go far from home.
But then I decided to fly in the face a bit of the purpose of a taper, by crossing the bridge from Brisbane’s north to Redcliffe, adding 16 km each way. 
But I kept it pretty easy: around 50%. I thought of it as linking two heatmaps. Headed to my favorite café, which fortuitously was opening about 15’ after I arrived in the area. Rolled a little further around the bay & back to indulge in an iced choccy.
Whole ride map & stats:
Today I ran on the treadmill at home because it was raining outside. I recently read this and now I’m thinking of starting to do squats every day. Around January I really want to go to the sea and I want to look good. I hope that I will succeed
Ive had a bit of a headache all day, but it could be the last good and light night of the summer, so I went for it Sill -4. Lol, based on last night’s ride I thought I’d get finished before the Woodwalton drop (steep enough for me to touch 40mph) but I still had a few intervals to do, so rather than pedalling out down it, I went deeper into the Fen. Only issue after the minute Z1 cool down rather than ‘Spin easy for 1 minute, longer if you can’, to get hone before dark and stay warm so I wouldn’t go numb, the longer wasn’t ‘easy’. I had lights though and when I stopped to put them on I accidently reset/ saved the ride. Which was a good job as a bloke caught me at the lights and started chatting. It would have rude to have sped of so the Z1 ride meant I got back just after ‘lighting up time’
The Whole thing FWIW
Edit: I forgot to say the workout seems to have cleared the headache 
I’m envious. Oh well maybe next year. Athough I’ll probably forget to book anything in advance and end up somewhere completely different again…
Short ride on the “Jankster” REI Co-Op 1.2 MTB.
It’s heavy, its’s slow, and it’s performance matches my crappy MTB skill level. I need to take some skill classes next summer.
Not the best prep for the last N&DCA TT for me today. Yesterday I thought the canteen shut at 3pm, only to find it shut at 2.40pm. So I raided the vending machine for lunch and I think I over did the iced flapjacks or something. Anyway it been a liquid stomach all the way to the start. I met some mates at a cafe beforehand and thought I felt better on the return but not long after 
Did my warm up for the TT and it didn’t feel too bad but after
The out leg on the TT felt not bad into a stiff headwind and I timed the multiple roundabouts right. I thought I’d timed the turn roundabout right but after I passed the arm to a village a car pulled out at my back wheel, and in the tricky side wind I sat up and stayed sat up. I can usually sit at 92-95% max HR and push it to 97-99% for the finish. Today was sub 89% for the most part and I only pushed to 90% in the last 1/3 of a mile. Ive not ate anything yet and I am watching the Vuelta re-live but at least there hasn’t yet been any liquid stomach visits yet.
5x 1 min strength + 3x 10 min tempo
Prince William and Fauquier Counties, VA, US
Metric century in my usual stomping grounds of the farmlands southwest of Manassas, VA. 71F and 93% humidity at the start, so the meme of the underwater cyclist that I copied from Facebook was apropos. Weather forecast showed little chance of rain, but apparently that was only for Prince William county. I ran into a 45-minute long shower in Fauquier, though. On the flip side, my bike and shoes are clean, and I have a freshly re-waxed chain. 
Fall wildlife are starting to appear. Saw two different groups of wild turkeys, including one in flight to join the others; canadian geese migrating south in a nice aero echelon; and a cotton tailed rabbit that challenged me to a sprint (I won, but only because I was going downhill 
).
Went out yesterday. “This was a very bad idea 
” was what I called it on Strava.
Basically got heat exhaustion & had to quit halfway on the audax ride “Downs Murmuration 300”:
This is how far I got:
I’ve done this distance three times already, but all in the teens & low twenties on the celcius scale. Made the call of shame & got rescued. Last I wanted was to get delirious on a country road ages from anywhere. There were three others doing this route & one of them quit at that point too.
I really should’ve pulled out when I saw the forecast a few days prior, which said 32°C. Unseasonably hot even here for a “winter” day.
Consumed 4.3L + electrolytes, + a third 550mL bottle containing 400g of carbs. (My water consumption per unit distance rivalled the fuel consumption of a motorbike.) Sat on .57IF until I hit the wall. I really don’t think that riding easier would’ve helped me, because that would’ve simply meant more time out in the sun.
Lesson learnt. 
Here’s a pic of me before I suspected I should question my sanity:
Salty boi
Heavy rain overnight which lasted into the morning and put of a lot of riders from my Sunday group ride, so we merged groups. That meant it had to be carefully paced not to drop folk; not that the usual faster group s that fast. After Friday and with my stomach still 95% empty you never saw me complaining though and a shorter zone 1 ride to a local cafe was exactly ‘what the doctor ordered’. It’s been a beautiful afternoon and I’ve had to resist going out again luckily the Glasgow Derby and the Vuelta was on by way of distraction.
Speaking of merging groups of differing abilities, there used to be (I don’t know if it’s still going; this was 20 years ago) a big group that left from Brisbane on Sunday mornings on a 100k loop to the north. The faster bunch kept the pace easy & towed the slower bunch at about 30kph for about the first 35k, after which the faster group opened it up & did a longer circuit past the Scarborough boat harbor, whilst the slower group shortcut to Redcliffe. Both groups merged at the bakery for the coffee stop, then the trip back was at the slower group’s pace again. I thought it was quite a good format.
I’ve been riding on Zwift every Wednesday morning with a small group for the last five-ish years. The group is made up of people in the US, Canada, the UK and Spain that met through various events and group rides and decided to form our own group. This weekend the North American contingent met for the first time and had a blast! We met in Niagara Falls in Canada. The cycling was fun and the company was phenomenal!
