Wanted to do 40 today and although it was cooler in the morning, rain was due over by 4pm-ish so I set off early, at about 10:25.
As soon as I’d strapped on my cycling shoes, it started to rain. But not too heavy, so I set off anyway, on the Boardman. I did much the same route as last time I pedalled down to Stoney Stanton – but extended it a bit to go down to a village called Sapcote. This is a route that differs slightly from the original route I devised down there in that it avoids a steep climb on the approach to Desford, at the cost of a bit more elevation gain overall. But I planned to come back the original way, so it was a sort of part-circular route, like so:
Anyway – it stopped raining after a couple of miles, or more probably I pedalled out of it, as the roads were bone dry by the time I got to Ibstock. I soon dried off in the sunshine. But unfortunately despite a promising forecast, I was plagued by on and off rain, interspersed with warmish sunshine for the whole ride. It was quite blowy intermittently, as well. But my spirits remained high, as indeed they have been since the EU parliament results came in last night. And since Theresa threw in the towel, to be fair.
Stopped at a garage near the bottom of the route and bought myself lunch which I consumed on a comfortable bench at Croft. I also did a couple of calf stretching exercises, no doubt to the amusement of the person in the passing car who saw me performing a sort of seated goose-stepping routine.
Very happy with the way the knees coped again, a bit of general soreness set in after about 25 miles but no pain from pushing up hills. Substantial improvement over just a few weeks ago. Will continue to extend distances by a couple of miles a week and I’m very happy that I can now do a decent run out like this, especially over relatively unfamiliar territory.
40.08 miles, which takes me 70 miles over May’s target to 352 this month, and that’s my biggest monthly tally since April 2018 by over 100 miles. I see I’ve also achieved the Vélo North 50 Mile Challenge on Strava. Which is nice.