Muddy fun

So after last week’s cancellation (on my part), I finally got to go biking today with Lindsay.  The sun was shining, and I was out waiting with my bike and kit on the drive when she rocked up at 10am.  Not that I was eager or anything.  Everything in the car, and we were off up the M5 to Cannock Chase in high spirits.

After yesterday’s run (and still from Circuits on Tuesday), I was feeling a little stiff in my legs (and frankly my abs are killing!), so I was hoping that wasn’t going put any kind of dampener on the fun.  And it didn’t. 

24km of muddy, twisty, technical, uppy, downy, swoopy, rooty, puddly, sunny, breezy, bermy, roller-coastering single-track goodness later and we arrived back at the car with big grins and not a small amount of mud, grit and general forest-floor plastered all over us.  Good times.

I know I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again just in case it sticks in my thick skull this time:  I love that shit, so why do I leave it so long between rides????  Long enough that it takes me a while to warm up and regain my confidence each time, and then it’s one huge (tired) grin for the rest of the ride.

We did the full newly-extended loop today of Follow The Dog + The Monkey trail, and I have to say that I was pretty near done-in by the time we were finishing up.  My fitness ain’t bad these days, but I need to be fitter still to make best use of these beautiful trails.  The ride took just shy of 3 hours start to finish, and since I was wearing my heart-rate monitor I’m able to tell you that my heart-rate was averaging 156 over the entire time, maxing at 178 (one of the big switchback hills I should imagine), and I apparently burnt a whopping 1800+ calories.

As we’d missed lunchtime sometime out in the woods, we dived on the cake (toffee-apple and treacle muffins - *drool*) and hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallows at the centre’s cafe.  Well earned I’d say.

I have shall have to hi-jack someone into riding with me again soon – it’s too much fun not to.

So that’s the end of this week.  I’ve put in a hell of a lot of activity (46.5 points according to my tracker, but the bike ride was pointed on the conservative side as all “cycling gently” because I can’t be arsed to work out how much should be counted as “cycling strenuously” – just seems too much effort), and I’m in bonus points for the week, thanks to all that activity which nicely eliminated the weekend’s excess.  I haven’t been near a scale all week, so I’m fingers crossed for something nice tomorrow.  Anything would be nice.  Half a lb.  Anything.  I’m not expecting a certain number, just hoping for more validation that being honest works.  A fourth week losing in a row would be fantastic.

Tune in tomorrow to see how that goes!  In the meantime, I give myself permission to take a day off the activity tomorrow, as I have pretty much beasted myself for the last 4 days straight, and I ache …