Day 135 - The Pint Run

Today is the 17th day of the Tour de France and with only 4 more days remaining until the final stage,Versailles to Paris Champs-Elysees, it is amazing to see how well Chris Froome is performing. He is now sitting over 4 minutes ahead of his nearest rival and this is even more outstanding considering there are only 2 minutes then between the times of the next 5. What surprises me about cycle racing at this level is how the whole team pull together for their lead rider. It is a team event with the one goal of getting their man to the front of the pack when they cross the line. It is fascinating to watch the strategies and tactics unfold over a 200+ km race.

In heady support of Team Sky, I could not resist using their Facebook Avatar Creator to create a vision of how my team jersey may look ...

For my circuit today, I felt I had to do more to make up for yesterday's lacklustre performance. So heading out up over my 3 hills, along the estuary and into Colyton, my plan was to get up to 10 miles and also reach my 500 mile marker. It was with great disappointment, therefore, to see on my return that I'd missed this by 0.2 miles! I could not leave this like that, a lunchtime ride would have to be squeezed into my busy schedule. Riding out at midday is a totally different prospect to that of an early morning one, the heat hit me as I left the office and built as I rode. What kept me going was the thought of a lovely cool pint at the end! As always, the homeward journey seemed quicker and I now have the measure of a lunchtime pint run, which when the mood takes me again, may very well be brought into play!

Today's stats:

am: 9.83 mi, 46m 16s, Avg 12.7 mph, Max 28.9, 513 kcal

pm: 3.75 mi, 17m 34s, Avg 12.8 mph, Max 18.8, 195 kcal