Summer’s back! Or at least it was warm enough this afternoon. I wanted to do 40 or so after work. Surprisingly I didn’t feel too tired, despite having been telephoned at 04:15 in the morning, then asked politely to resuscitate a poorly server belong to a well-known left-leaning political current affairs magazine. I literally switched it off, using a remote power function, then switched it back on again. I’m not the most analytical problem-solver at that time of the morning.
But if I wasn’t too tired, I did feel sensitive to the risk of being called out of hours again – so as usual I took a route intended not to stray too far from base.
I started by going down toward Heather, then across toward Measham. Then up to Packington and back along Alton Hill – the old ‘Packington Pentagon’ route which has fallen out of favour now, on the grounds of being a bit short. Less than 12 miles I think. But rather than turning for home from Alton Hill, I headed up through Coleorton to Melbourne, over Swarkestone Bridge and west along the river.
I turned back after 24 miles with the intention of going east as far as Isley Walton then back home down Top Brand, but on a whim, after crossing the bridge again, I turned right for Ticknall.
If I’d thought about it properly I wouldn’t have done that, because not only did involve me ascending the northern face of Bastard Hill to get home, but it meant that I’d have to do Alton Hill again as well. But oddly it was easier on the second go than the first. I’m sure that’s the first time I’ve done it twice in the same ride. A couple of years ago I used to avoid doing it once, where possible.
Back five minutes after sunset, on 40.70 miles. I’d had the rear light on for about half an hour, conditions had become quite gloomy and I wondered if it was going to rain (it didn’t). I’d had the front light on for the last ten minutes or so of the ride. Only a little LED blinker but that was all I needed.
That was quite a workout, I suspect in my top three or four rides in terms of average elevation gain per mile.
Started the third Jack Reacher novel in audiobook form. Good stuff.
https://www.strava.com/activities/4031344077
I’m 620 miles ahead of my mile tally for 8 Sept on my highest-scoring year, which was 2016. I did 5776 miles in total that year, so I’m aiming for 6,000 in 2020. On that basis I need to do about 500 this month. 157 done so far.