Rest Week

Last week (week 50) was a planned rest week. Only 3 sessions to do. This week (week 51) the base miles start to ramp up in earnest. My MTB race bike for 2017 was decided also after some discussions with Christian at Musette. He has convinced me to give electronic shifting a go, so a Di2 bike is going to be ordered! How modern! :-)

Tuesday was supposed to be an intervals session that I've done for the past 3-4 weeks, but I was feeling pretty rough. I suffer from migraines every now and again, and just after lunch on Tuesday I started to feel the tell-tale signs. True enough the proper headache came just before home time along with the tight neck/shoulders. Time to rest, lucky it was a rest week!

BMC Fourstroke FS01 - with Shimano Di2 electronic shifting

Wednesday was then family time, and Thursday turned out to be a test MTB ride with a couple of guys from work; Magnus and John. We wanted to see if it was possible to squeeze in a ride at lunchtime within a reasonable time-frame. So we planned every detail the day before, and then came in early to make up the time for the day. All went pretty well and we managed to get to the trail head in Järavallen ahead of our planned start time. A lap of the fantastic course there (thanks Jerker and crew), plus a little bit and we were ready to head back to work for showers and food. I therefore only managed to piece together 38mins at lunch, but with a planned duration of 1:10 for the day another 32mins were ridden after the kids were in bed on the torture device (Monark test cycle). All in all a pretty busy day, but nice to know the option for a lunch ride is actually a possibility. The total time away from work was 1:30, so an hour made up in the morning takes care of it. Only 38mins ride time though, so I think we'll have to ride out to the trails on the road next time to make the cycle bit worthwhile.

The next ride planned was Saturday. I'd talked to Tobias about coming over to Genarp to ride with him on the MTB earlier in the week, but we both needed to ride early due to other plans before lunch. Tobbe was out at 6:00 on a 3 1/2 hour base ride. I had only 1 1/2 hours planned, so met him at a more reasonable 8:00 to ride together for the last bit. It's been a while since we managed to get a ride in together, seems strange after we rode together so much last winter. But what with the second kid arriving in July, and Malin starting to train again, it's been tough to get time to come out to Genarp.
I was quickly reminded of how lucky we are to have this area so close to us. The beautiful trails were riding fantastically well due to the freezing temperature. It's always nice to ride with someone else who is at a similar level to you too, as the trails become even more fun when you ride them at a higher pace. We got some really good flow, and quickly got back into the flow that you find when riding with someone you ride with a lot. You know how they'll take a corner, how late they'll brake, where they'll put the power down for a short climb. MTB zen. :-)

CykelCity Women's Racing Team - L-R: Jessica, Sandra, Malin, Amanda & Helen

We also had a team meeting with the girls in the CykelCity team on Thursday. The meeting was at Musette, where we drank coffee, went through some plans and looked at kit designs, etc. Really looking forward to being involved with these talented ladies next year!