The Hills are alive with the sound of...pain?

I can safely say that today's ride was a massive improvement over last Saturday's ride. That probably wasn't all that hard to achieve to be honest, but I am very glad nonetheless.

Today's ride was one of those ones that seem so much easier on paper. 120km, 30 minutes of hill repeats, then some 60 second bursts out of the saddle, uphill. Doesn't sound like much. But far out, ouch. What all that hill work translated to was riding around King's Park for a bit over an hour, all up gaining 1150m of elevation. It hurt.

It was a fun ride though, and one of the more interesting ways to spend 120km in the saddle. The hills work broke the ride up nicely, so it didn't feel like I was just heading out and riding for several hours. It more felt like, a shortish ride, then some hills, then another shortish ride and then I was done.

Epic sunrise too, which is always nice.

The only hiccough to the ride came when I started up one of my usual hills in King's Park to find the last third blocked by a mass of cars and people. And when I say mass, I mean a MASS, the whole road was blocked by a solid wall of humanity. I hadn't realised it but I had ridden straight into the start of the Shitbox Rally, an annual fund raising car rally (yes interesting name I know). It starts in King's Park apparently. It wasn't a big deal, luckily King's Park has lots of hills to choose from, so I headed to one of the others. It was a fair bit of a surprise though.

The other thing about the ride this morning was that it was freezing. 5 or 6 degrees, same as yesterday morning. I had on one of everything, vest, arm warmers, overshoes, the whole bit. On mornings like this one I tell myself over and over, 10 minutes of riding and then I will be warm. This morning it was probably more like 20 minutes, but I got there in the end. Once I was warm, it was a very pleasant morning. I never got hot though I have to say, despite all the clothes.

Nothing more on the program for the day training wise. It is a long weekend here in Perth this weekend and so I think this afternoon I might make a start on the backlog of relaxing I have to do, and maybe some catching up with the family.