Endurance training day 1......

My dear daughter has decided she wants to do some endurance competitions. As she is only 12, and can't go out on her own, this means that on top of the unaccustomed cycling I am doing for the 5x50 Challenge it looks like there will be a further shock to my couch potato system, involving actually riding faster than our habitual gentle amble.....

So I thought I'd see how well Gandalf and I can cope with faster work. Apparently, we need to do 10-12km/h for a 10k endurance comp. The annoyingly fit other half averages 10km/h on the run so I thought, let's go out with him and see if we can keep up!

All was going well, as soon as G saw him run off, he went into trot by himself to stay with him. Ali was behind on Fina (she doesn't start school til 12 on a Thursday, part timer ) and Tan on Ches. G felt really up for it and so I let him go into canter past the Marathon Man. This was fine, until I heard a shout from behind and pulled up to see poor Tanya hanging on to Ches's side, it appeared he'd got over excited and put in a few bucks, she did well to stay on!

Anyway, Mike offered to go back with them as understandably she didn't feel up to carrying on at speed. We did though, and the boy trotted and cantered pretty much the whole way, with a couple of walk breaks after each canter. I didn't need to ask him, he just did his own thing really. My energy must be different from our usual amble around and he picks up on that of course. We did the 5k loop in 30 minutes which is about right. Map here.

Didn't do it a second time as this is only day 1 and also Ali needed to be back for school. Going to try again on Saturday.....and tomorrow I will take Ches out with Mike just in case he gets any ideas about having a bucking session = going home and not doing any more work......

Cycled to Tan's and back too, the old thigh muscles are complaining a bit........

Sorry, no pics, this riding at speed thing means there's not time to take any!!