Proper training continues

Weirdly for me, I've actually continued Proper Training. This week I have completed 124km with over 1,400 metres of climb. That's probably thanks to Fit Mark's ingenious (if horrible) hilly loops.  Mostly I did 'Mark's Loop' which is only 10.5k but has 190 metres of climb. My 'personal best' time went from 44 minutes to 38 minutes in the week. The 38 minutes was on Thursday, fairly late in the evening and I could barely speak or walk when I got home. So on Friday I did 'Mark's Eight' - the same loop with another different loop afterwards - 22km of cycling with 393 metres of climb, including the Draethen Drag twice. My legs were still tired from Thursday's efforts, so it felt really slow but looking at my clever watch thingy stats, it wasn't that much slower...

On Saturday I decided to take it easy and do a mostly flat route. So I cycled to and from dog training. The long way. All 43 miles of it...

I went on the mountain bike for a change and because I thought it would be more fun. Mindful of the Velominati Rules I didn't wear my super padded cycling shorts (wrong thing for a MTB) so by mile 15 I could barely sit down. And then I took a 'scenic route':

The red is where the route was the same, and the green was the direct route which I took on the way home. The pink was my scenic route on the way to dog training and I honestly thought I was NEVER going to reach it. The only bonus of this was that the Melodeon Master and Happy Running Dog were already there and had explained my absence so I got a round of applause when I eventually did rock up.

After a Snickers, a slice of Alsation Jan's birthday cake and a cup of tea I was fine, so we did dog training (including running 400m on the agility course with very wobbly legs) and I cycled home again. By the end I was pretty much running on empty, but I managed all the hills and didn't stop at all. Hooray!

Today I had a fun training session with Happy Running Dog - riding the MTB up and down a big hilly field near home. I pedalled, she ran alongside with her ears flapping. Lovely. Only 5k, but 130 metres of climb. On wet grass.

Tomorrow is a rest day.

Phew.