Come out and play

It is now coming to the end of April. But I have to say I haven't seen much of spring just yet. Just as the temperature started to rise, we had a full week of rain and storm. I did almost all my runs on the treadmill that week.

This week however, was a nice change. We had a few days of maximum temperature above 10 degrees. I did both of my runs in shorts and one of them in my singlet. Definitely feels a lot lighter than wearing multiple layers. On Saturday, when I usually do my ride, the weather took a turn and we had some light snow and strong winds. I decided to head to the gym and swim instead, hoping for better weather the next day. Luckily it all changed this morning and it was bright and sunny outside.

I took this opportunity to ride outside. It was still sub zero degrees when I started at 9am. But the sun was bright and soon I could feel my body warming up. In the days before I had been searching for ride routes in London. There aren't many and you have to ride out of town into the country roads to avoid the traffic. Hence, my scribblings of the directions on the piece of paper above.

The country roads were quiet. On average, I had one vehicle passed me every 10 minutes. But just like in town, because of the snow in winter, the road conditions are not very good, many of them have cracks, so I had to be careful. Also, had to re-learn to ride on the right side of the road.

All in all, I had a good ride. 82kms with an average speed of just over 31kph. Definitely beats meshing it out on the trainer indoors. The weather was kind, the winds weren't very strong. The route had some rollers, but mostly flat. I need to look for hillier routes to train for Ironman Whistler in August. Here's to a warmer spring in weeks to come!