No Show

Well my prediction ended up being correct and my ride was solo this morning. 

I should clarify that the group ride I was supposed to be taking this morning was actually related to work rather than Front Runner. It wasn't Front Runners who didn't turn up, they are generally a tougher bunch than that. Why was I taking a ride for work? Good question, there is currently a fitness campaign going on at my work and so people at the office were keen to do some cycling. Logical. Somebody else was going to lead the group but they had a last minute bike breakage and so I was asked to take the session instead. No problems. 

However, as I mentioned yesterday I am not sure how keen the people at work really are for the whole cycling thing. I had one pull out on Friday and I don't think there were that many signed up to start with, which meant that when the time came to roll out this morning there was a whole lot of nobody there. 

As frustrating as the no shows were, it did mean I got to go off and have a ride of my own done at my own pace and on a course of my choosing. I am never that good at riding in groups and so getting to ride solo was actually a bit of a win in my books. If I am honest I probably wouldn't have chosen to go cycling this morning if I had been left to my own devices, however, as it was it was a great morning for cycling and I had a really nice time doing so, the no show was a bit of a blessing in disguise. 

In the end I managed to squeeze in 75km of cycling, which is more than I had planned to do, and a little bit more than I thought I was even capable of doing at the moment. It was a little uncomfortable towards the end, but I didn't really hit the point where I felt completely tapped out, so that was nice. I think I could even have probably stretched to 100km if I had wanted to. Happy to claim that one.

On the ride I got to travel over some of my more favourite routes and even bumped into some mates and had a chat so all up it was a really great morning out on the bike. It was pretty darn freezing at the start (down around 2 degrees), but appropriate clothing and a bit of hard work meant I warmed up quick enough. Once I was warm the blue skies and non existent wind made for perfect conditions. 

It was pleasantly surprising how my body held up to the work. Power was down a lot on what I used to do, but higher than I was expecting it to do. Combined with the fact that I survived the distance meant that all up the ride has gone down in my book as a raving success. Probably not enough of a success to get me out on the bike every weekend from now on, but certainly enough to get me doing it a bit more often.