Bike Drills

When Hugo first mentioned this on our bike ride yesterday, I thought he must be talking about some new-fangled tool that allows you to effortlessly change various settings on your bike. Alas, he was not.

Having learnt loads from doing different technique drills in the pool and upping the running pace by doing speed drills, it does make sense to do drills to improve the cycling too. I just had no idea what they entailed.

"Uphill out-of-the-saddle sprints" said Hugo enthusiastically. Brilliant. Who would ever think of torturing themselves in this way?! I thought I should at least give it a bash, what's the worst that could happen? Other than simply running out of steam and falling off my bike and into a bush of course.

So we did several 10 second sprints, starting on the flat and progressing to powering up the hills. 10 seconds does not sound like a long time, but believe me, it is. Especially when you can't hear that your 10 seconds is up because the wind is blowing in the wrong direction. Every single time I said "Ooh, that felt longer than 10 seconds" and Hugo would say "Yeh, I shouted stop and you didn't hear me"..

It was indeed good training though and I'm feeling a lot more balanced out of the saddle now. We rode out to the Ginger Piggery along the gorgeous Wylye Valley (and stopped there for a quick sugar-up and pig-stroke). The ride was generally quite fast-paced and I was completely knackered once I got home.

Despite a very good stretch afterwards, my glutes and general leg muscles today are still completely shot so I have decided Saturday shall be a day of rest and I will get back on the leg endurance program tomorrow!