Weekend trials

4 weeks to go, so we had a group training weekend. One of the team is on holiday, but the remaining 7 of us set out for Brighton on Saturday morning, then headed along to Portsmouth, and then back to Guildford via Alresford and the A31. The pace when we set off was fast, and I had a feeling that I was unlikely to be able to maintain it all day - and I didn't!

Lunch came just in time on a hill overlooking Portsmouth. What a view that was. I was pretty done in by that point, and guess that the culprit was a combination of not having done all the miles, and not really getting the nutrition balance right. Maybe going out to dinner on Friday night didn't help either!

Anyway, the real excitement was on the way home along the A31 when I noticed that there was something awry with my tyre. I had been bumping along as though I was going over cracks in the road, but there were none. Upon inspection it appeared that there was a kink in the tyre. I knew that this was trouble, but thought we could press on anyway. After about 5 miles there was a loud bang, like a rifle shot, and the tyre burst. Thank goodness for mobile phones and the trusty wife to come and rexcue me.

So I ended up with 125 miles and the others managed 147 or so.