An easy spin(!)

This weekend has definitely shown that the British Summer has arrived. After a lovely chicken and bacon salad in the pub with mum at lunchtime I bid her farewell and contemplated finally going out for a run. I decided it was a bit too hot, but a quick check on facebook showed that Hugo was looking to go out for a nice easy ride and that sounded just about perfect..

Hugo text me to say that Hannah would be joining us, and we were going to go for a nice, easy spin. For those of you that don't know, Hannah and Hugo are fellow Salisbury Triathlon Club members, both very much with youth on their side (I think they are both 17), and both totally, ridiculously fit! Hugo is a total demon on the bike and I've heard Hannah was a fish in a previous life - which was proven at the recent Salisbury Triathlon as she lapped some of the top blokes in the swim. I knew when Hugo had said "easy spin" it would be still be a decent pace, certainly a decent pace for me anyway, but I needed to get back out on the bike as it's been over two weeks since my last ride.

After a little warm-up, Hugo and I met Hannah and we went off around the Woodfords and up mile hill, lovely. We dropped down the other side and had a couple of good climbs up the hills around Wilton - I was at the back but the legs and the heart were working and that's always good.

We left Hannah as she peeled off home and she left us with some directions, as we couldn't decide which route to take to head home. I didn't fancy going back the way we came as that meant doing the mega hills in the other direction - but Hannah said there was an easy route if we went through the next village. She said there was "one hill, it's steep but it's tiiiiiny". Great, I can cope with a tiny hill.

So, we turned into the village and were ascending straight away, indeed a very short but fairly steep hill. We rode through the beautiful village of Homington and turned left at the bus stop - as we had instructed to.

Bugger. The hill into the village obviously wasn't the one she had meant, THIS was the one she had meant. Tiny was probably not the word I would have used to describe it. Steep, yes. Tiny, no. One mini-heart attack later and we were at the top and on the home stretch. A nice ride through Quidhampton and Lower Bemerton brought us back home. 31.5 miles in total.

I celebrated a good ride with a cup of tea and a banana. My shoulders and hands (hands?! bizarre!) are aching but the legs felt great after a post-ride stretch and I'll be ready to tear it up again later this week!