Everyone who works Monday to Friday enjoys that feeling when they get through Wednesday and the weekend is in sight. It can sometimes be like that on the cycle commute as well. 3 days over and only 2 to go makes the pedals that bit easier to spin, almost as if the road somehow becomes downhill to the weekend.
I say sometimes, because I was given a stark reminder on the Wednesday home time commute that it’s not always like that…
It’s maybe a bit ironic given my previous post on fuelling up, but the ride home on Wed felt like I was really running on empty. It was a sleepy start to the day (nothing unusual there) and my legs did feel weaker than usual just walking around the office. When it came to home time, I set out and knew immediately that it was going to be a tough slog.
The wind was pretty strong, as it had been all week, and I could feel the effort even going down hills. It wasn’t long until I had resigned myself to just taking it easy so as to conserve as much energy as I could. When it is that windy I find the best tactic is to pick an easy gear and spin at a reasonably high cadence. Tucking in out of the wind as much as possible is also helpful, but this can be tiring on the body in itself. There were points on the journey that I needed the easiest of granny gears available on my cassette.
Even with the wind and tired legs I was still able to beat the traffic out of Edinburgh. It’s amazing how much of a lift it can give you to nip past the traffic as it queues for miles to get home. Once out of the city and onto the exposed open roads I could feel myself flagging a bit. I was now really looking forward to tucking into dinner when I reached home. Then I remembered the emergency ration pack in my rucksack (Top Ten Tips #6), so found a suitable place to stop and guzzled it down.
Who knew chocolate and coconut protein balls could taste so good? I’ve had them before but never have they hit the spot as much as then. Mind you, I was so hungry I could probably have eaten the wrapper they were in and thought that that tasted great. They certainly satisfied my craving anyway, gave me a nice mental lift and after 5 minutes rest I continued on my way with renewed enthusiasm.
It didn’t make the rest of the journey easy, but I completed it in a much more cheerful state than if I had not had the snack. Reaching home I was delighted to find the family tucking in to spaghetti bolognese, so pulled up a chair and devoured my plateful. Another great thing about the cycle commute, food tastes so good after the effort expended!
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bobzer
Neil Broadhurst