Warmup with 2-min surges

Pre-season camp day 1

Moonlit warmup

Warmup day

Türlersee then drills

An attempt at that ride I said I would never do...

Great planning: 
•13.5% climb with insufficient gearing
•Exposed, on a hot sunny day
•On the day that all farmers there decided to mow the meadows and gather hay: there were 6 tractors & hay trucks going up and down the climb all day 😤

I blew up on the 8th ascent and no amount of gels and water stops would revitalise my legs. Close to puking near the top of the last 3 laps. 200m (vertical) from the top of the 10th lap, a tractor behind me beeped to be let through. I pulled over into a layby and unclipped to stop (not knowing if I would ever be able to get going again!) - but instead of driving past he stopped next to me to harrangue me for several minutes. I'm not sure what for exactly but he did tell me I was crazy... which actually, I agree with entirely🤣

And yet nonetheless, somehow, a glorious day. The whole point was to challenge myself: find my limits, and push them. Well ok, it felt more like my limits found me and punched me into a ditch but still: it was tough, I genuinely enjoyed it, and there was plenty of time to think 😅 The number of metres is artbitrary... and if it's not enough for the Everesting tag, it's not the end of the world. Mountaineering is full of heroic failure, after all !

Apart from that one farmer, every stranger I saw was lovely: the e-bikers, the mountainbikers. the hikers, the hay truck drivers, the people at the farm near the top whose garden tap I used to refill on laps 5-9... and most of all, the lovely lovely lady who sold me an ice cream at the top of lap 10 when I could pedal no more. She was confused as to why I was sitting on the ground not on a chair... there was a high risk I would fall off the chair 🤣

Huge thanks to Liz Romanov for her selfless support for 4 hours in the afternoon, the most wonderful hug at the end, and persuading me to go to McDonalds afterwards (first time in 20 years) - it turns out french fries are AMAZING!
Thanks also to John for sparking the idea, Ev and Marty and Artyom for coming along to cheer, and my coach Tim Pigott for calling me "daft as a brush" but helping me get to a  place where I could survive this (more or less). And thanks Hannah Rhodes-Patterson for setting the bar damn high! 

No one is likely to ever want to sponsor me for a bike ride but I’ll be donating to Kate’s Home Nursing in memory of Sharon Laws - yesterday would have been her 46th birthday. If you want to as well, details are here: https://cotswold.gloucs.sch.uk/sharonlawssportive/

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Emma Pooley

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Warmup with 2-min surges

Pre-season camp day 1

Moonlit warmup

Warmup day

Türlersee then drills

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