Improving...............?

Having only done a couple of 25 milers last week, I was feeling a little conscious that I hadn't done enough.  In fact Sunday's ride was postponed as an evening with Ann's family in Paisley the night before, turned out to extend until gone midday by the time we got home, and the 'one or two' ales that I'd so happily sunk the night before hampered all enthusiasm.

Today was another of those frosty mornings, so I headed out to take a steady ride out to North Berwick again.  A gentle 50 miler was what I was needing.

After having cycled about 5 miles, the frigid air was beginning to penetrate into the legs, feet and hands, so the gentle effort was upped, to try and get a bit more warmth into the body.  I decided not to stop for a coffee in North Berwick as I wanted to see if I could just whack out the 50 miles in a one'er.  So I just stopped for a glug of drink from my bottle and to take a quick piccie along to the harbour.

I got home after 3hours and 20 minutes, which gave an average speed of 15mph.  I gave that some thought whilst I eagerly devoured some soup and a sandwich and was actually quite pleased with the distance and speed.  If I could keep that up all day, which I appreciate is doubtful at his stage in the training, then in theory I could clock up a 100 miles in a day if push came to shove.

Whilst pondering on the effort needed to do this I thought about calories needed to keep me going.  A bit of internet research ensued, and I came up with the fact that for a man of my weight, cycling at between 14-16 mph, I would be burning about 900 calories per hour.  So today's ride came in at an impressive 3000 calories burned.

This is excellent if the sole purpose of cycling is for weight loss, but it's not.  Obviously I will lose weight on the trip, but based on the fact that we'll be burning maybe an additional 5000 calories a day on the trip, then serious thought will have to be given to how we are going to consume in the region of 7500 calories per day.  I'm no nutritionist - so that will have to go on the list of things to think about.  I wonder how many pork pies and pints of beer would make up the daily requirement !!!!!