The company I work for has organised a Great Virtual Ride for charity, the idea being that employees in all the various offices worldwide should perform some sort of activity to count towards a particular distance. For the UK it’s the distance between Land’s End and John O’Groats. Although the idea was for people to do a bit in their spare time through the week and add them up, I put myself down for 100 miles and took today off to do them all in one go.
A light wind was forecast from the NE, and I decided to do Newark and back. I first did that route about a year ago and I believe that before today I’d done it no more than twice, which seems a shame as it’s an enjoyable run out. It takes in plenty of villages with shops, and benches and pubs. And it’s mostly flat. The disadvantage is that the road surface is a bit scrubby here and there, especially near Newark where it’s disgraceful with very deteriorated surfaces patched up with lumpy tarmac applied like giant lumps of dark grey chewing gum. It’s also a bit convoluted with lots of turns and junctions. It requires frequent reference to the eTrex.
And to make matters worse I discovered that the track I’d uploaded to the eTrex was over-compressed. I’d shrunk it using a GPX editor to reduce the size. GPX files are pretty small anyway but the old programmer in me likes to have everything at a minimum file and memory size. But in this case I’d overdone it and the subsequent jagged line representing the track didn’t follow the actual roads very closely. Like this:
Despite that it was a really nice run out, apart from Newark itself which was a bit busy with traffic. I ended up going right through Newark and exploring a bit, to places called South Muskham and North Muskham. Bought some food at a garage south of Newark on the way back and had a very pleasant lunch, including a strong iced coffee and a Bounty bar.
The return leg seemed easier, with a bit of a tailwind. But the headwind on the outward leg wasn’t overly troublesome. The temperature was supposed to be 3C when I left the house this morning but if it was, it was a tolerable 3C, although I’d wrapped up warm. I took off a layer from my legs after about 25 miles and thought I’d probably end up taking off a layer under my jersey as well, but although conditions warmed up nicely in the sun, I didn’t need to.
Passed quite a few open pubs with punters in their beer gardens, nice to see. I didn’t bother myself. Listened to my most recent Reacher audiobook, Echo Burning, and 5 Live.
Back on 107.84 miles, the eighth Fondo of the year. 237 done this month.