2013 Week 3

Week 3 (w/e 20 January 2013)
Miles: 84

This week, the weather turned cold again. Very cold. Snow was coming. My mileage suffered accordingly.

Monday started off with wintry showers, after which it turned clear and bitterly cold. So cold that I decided not to bother getting out on the bike at all. After all, it was only Monday and I could afford to take a day off, surely? Tuesday saw clear skies again but I got things underway in the late afternoon with a ride down the main road and back for 13 miles. I nipped out again later in the evening along the same road to come home with 19 miles for the day. Wednesday was cloudy and so not quite as cold. I was going to nip out for half an hour late in the evening but ended up struggling with my front light after swapping the batteries. The wretched thing refused to work. I wasted a good ten minutes fiddling with it and by the time I got it working again, it wasn't work going out. I did manage a decent ride in the evening though. Sticking again to the gritted main road, I came back home with 33 miles. So far so reasonable.

Thursday was very cold. A bitter wind from the south really pulled the temperature down. Sleet started to fall here at about 5 pm so I wasn't able to get the bike out at my usual time. There were still flakes in the air long into the evening, so that was that. Sheltered areas had a small covering of snow, but the roads and pavements around here stayed clear. Friday was achingly cold. A few flakes of snow twinkled in the air now and again but that was all. It was too cold for me to want to go for a bike ride, certainly. I think by this time I'd resigned myself to not being able to post a century this week and I was ok with that. I must be going soft.

I headed into the weekend with 33 miles then. The weather warmed up noticeably and it was dank but fine. I made my usual Saturday afternoon trip into town, dashed out again for a short trip when I got home and then undertook a third ride in the evening to push on to 61 miles. It was cloudy but cold on Sunday and fine at least. After making a short trip locally to take some photos for this blog, a 50 minute ride a bit later at tea time saw me on to 75 miles. I got back out in the evening and trundled up and down the main road to come home at 10 pm with 84 miles exactly.

So I missed out on a third consecutive 100. But to come within 16 miles of it in the circumstances (3 days of zero cycling) was a good effort... if I hadn't missed the chance of half an hour's ride on Wednesday thanks to the dodgy bike light, I would only have been about 8 miles short. Gah.

The stats:
Time taken to get 100: N/A
Total for 2013: 287.4
2013 average weekly mileage: 95.8
Consecutive 100s: 0
Miles needed for 6000: 5712.6
Percentage of target reached: 4.8%
Required average weekly mileage: 116.58

It actually took me 6 hours and 2 minutes to get my 84 miles this week at an average of 13.93 mph. Very poor. At least I'm 32.1 miles ahead of this time in 2012.