October consisted of 1,000 miles of training, almost 50,000 ft of vertical climbing, and helping hedgehogs cross the road! 🙂

Week 1

My first ride of October was like any other ride – Except that I had to help a hedgehog cross the road! Pretty rare, but cool. I had to handle it carefully, because I did’t want to have a load of holes in my hands 😀

12 hill reps + helping hedgehogs cross the road 🙂

Friday fun – Steady 40 miler around the Trent 🙂Following this, I also did my first Parkrun in over 2 years! A Parkrun is a 5km timed running event, where individuals can take it seriously, or just run for fun. A weekly event, they are open to everyone, free, and are safe and easy to take part in. I ran the 5k in 19:27 – A bit away from my PB but with a little bit of running, I am fairly certain that I will break my PB 🙂

The rest of the week consisted of Zwift sessions, an occasional ride outside and House football, which was pretty good – Rawlinson won, Hansard came 2nd, and Asycough were 3rd. I played in defence and along the wing 🙂

Mileage: 163 miles

Elevation gain: 6,926ft

Time ridden: 8 hrs 55 mins

Cumulative mileage (since 1st September): 944.4 miles

Cumulative elevation gain (since 1st September): 39,198 ft

Cumulative time ridden (since 1st September): 51 hrs 45 mins

Week 2

I started the week by riding twice in one school day! I woke up at 6:00am and quickly popped my skinsuit on, and then hopped onto the turbo for an hour before breakfast. I’d bagged 21.5 miles before I had left my house for the bus! I then rode towards Worlaby for some hills – I was pretty tired in all honesty after I had finished 🙂

Chillin is how I started this week – Steady spin on Teanu (Real-life name for the Watopia island), and a steady Parkrun with dad. But I bagged quite a few miles on Saturday, riding 52 miles and climbing 3,323 ft on a turbo!

Sunday was a real good ride – Rode out across the Humber with dad and Mike again!Zwift is so addictive – It really is. I finished my History homework at 8:45 pm, yet I couldn’t resist. So I rode 21 miles afterwards 😀

Damn History homework! 🙂Mileage: 213.2 miles

Elevation: 12,811 ft

Time ridden: 11 hrs 2 mins

Cumulative mileage (since 1st September): 1157.6 miles

Cumulative elevation (since 1st September): 52,009 ft

Cumulative time ridden (since 1st September): 62 hrs 47 mins

Week 3

I had an enjoyable ride out with the BDCC (Brigg & District Cycling Club) crew the following night – Was a really good ride. I was also pretty certain that I was becoming nocturnal  ✮☾✮ I started my ride at 8:30 pm on Friday evening on Zwift, and didn’t finish till 22:00! 😀

Rawr!A new PB was waiting for me at Parkrun 11 hours later – I ran the 5k around Central Park (No, not New York, Scunthorpe) in 18:26 – I shaved 20 seconds off my PB! Michael also came 2nd, and I came 3rd! Durham podium, whoop whoop 🙂

Like I said, I can’t resist – Rode 40 miles following Parkrun as a ‘cool down’ 😉

Sunday morning – Held the green jersey on Zwift! Sprinted hard cross the sprint section, and claimed top honours. 42.5 miles with efforts banked 🙂Tuesday was a good day for riding. After quickly eating my tea, I quickly rode around the 2015 World Championships course in Richmond on Zwift, bagging 21 miles, before putting my outdoor gear on as I was going to ride with the BDCC crew. It was a great ride – Barn owls, a bit of climbing and the International Space Station. 51 miles taken on Tuesday 😉

I put out enough power on Wednesday to have a burning smell from my turbo! I averaged 213 watts for 80 minutes, at medium-effort.

The weather was like this for quite a lot of October:

Mileage: 241.6 miles

Elevation gain: 11,351 ft

Time ridden: 11 hrs 26 mins

Cumulative mileage (as of 1st September): 1399.2 miles

Cumulative elevation gain: (as of 1st September): 63,360 ft

Cumulative time ridden (as of 1st September): 74 hrs 13 mins

Week 4 – Sub 18 min Parkrun!!!

The fourth week of October began with a BDCC ride – There were only 4 of us: Paul, Sheehan, Martin, and myself. The wind was strong on our ride, and it was hard. But I found the ride really fun. I guess the quietness of the ride, and it being dark, created a relaxing atmosphere, yet, we were pushing 20+mph into a solid headwind 🙂

I had a good chat with fellow Zwifters the following evening – It was a recovery ride, so nothing much over Zone 2 in terms of power. Steady 1.5 hours.

Sub 18 min Parkrun!

Arriving at Central Park, I warmed up ready for a fast, hard run. As well as racing my brother, I was also racing my nearest competitor for the upcoming X-Country in November. Tom Christie was waiting for me at the start line. Setting off like rockets, my brother and Tom pulled away from me at the start. I was running far faster than the pace I planned, so I did not pursue straight away. I planned on holding a pace that I could only just sustain for 5k.

My first mile-split was 5:46! Pretty fast. I was pushing hard, but I had good form. My dad was cheering my brother and I on at the kiosk area, and his support helped. Slowly but surely, I was beginning to reel in Tom and my brother. With 1 lap being 1.5 miles, we would run a total of 2 laps. Finishing the first lap, I was hot on the heels of my competitor and my brother. I caught them, took just a few seconds to recover a little, and then continued on, dropping them. My second mile-split was 5:51. This was a really fast run for me. I ran my PB for 5k at this moment at an average of 5:58/mile. I was averaging 5:48/mile.

It was sooo hard. I was really pushing hard. I had 1 mile left, and by now, I had a few seconds over Tom and Mike. I kept pushing – My lungs burned as well as my legs, and my mind was lost – With around 300m to go, it seemed as if I had 5 miles to go. The finish line seemed so far away. I kept on chipping away at the distance remaining, and soon enough, I crossed the line. I could NOT have pushed harder – I was totally maxed out.

I came 3rd and I broke 18 minutes!!! I ran 5k in 17:59! I shaved 27 seconds off my PB, that was also a PB! As well as beating my competitor, my brother also beat him too by a couple of seconds. Mike broke away with a few hundred metres to go, and pulled away from Tom. Apparently Mike’s sprint is really fast – I’ll have to make sure that I don’t leave it to a sprint when racing with him next time 😉

The following day (Sunday), my dad and I cruised around the Wolds with BDCC – It was cold, but it was a good ride. Fairly sunny, we rode up Claxby hill, up Tealby hill, through Binbrook, down to Rothwell before climbing to Caistor and back. Bevan, Josh and I raced each other up quite a few of the climbs – Hard but pretty fun. After 51 miles and nearly 3,000 ft of climbing, we arrived back in Brigg to watch the first few competitors of the Brigg 10k cross the line, including the military run too. I tried out the new workout mode on Zwift on Monday evening – You can pick a workout from a load of workouts, covering all different types of specifics, such as sprinting, increasing FTP, increasing 1 minute threshold, and so on. I picked the McCarthy workout – This workout comprises of a lot of anaerobic efforts. With lots of near and above threshold efforts, it is designed to increase your FTP (Functional Threshold Power). It was a good workout 🙂

Below is an image of what the workout looks like – The archway indicates the end of one period of effort, and the start of another. The screen is fuzzy/blurry on purpose by Zwift, as this effort is one of the most intense in the workout.The graph at the very bottom represents my power. The red graph above represents my heart rate. As you can see, to the left of the screen is the step-by-step guide to the workout, informing me about what I am currently doing, and what is coming next.

100k spin to Retford & back

With it being the holidays, I thought that I should do an endurance ride. So, I decided to ride to Retford, some 30+ miles away, to have lunch with my dad who’s office is based there. The cold, damp air wasn’t that inviting to be honest, and the damp roads weren’t either. But I like food, so I was going to ride to the Broomwagon, a cycling café in Retford. I had a ‘Big Mig’ burger – It was just as good as the ride (the ride was good) 🙂

Lunch with dad was pretty cool. But now, I had to ride back. The ride back was really fun, because I knew where to ride, and how far it was home, and it was backwind! I snapped this one on the way home 😉Pretty nice right? Oh, I spotted a grey squirrel in Laughton Forest too 🙂

66 miles later, I was home!

A few spins on Zwift ended the month, and Zwift had updated all the avatars in Zwift to glow-in-the-dark skeletons! Our jerseys became head bandanas! I wished the change increased my W/kg, but it didn’t 😦 😀

Below: Riding as a skeleton! Oh, and I own the Lap Jersey (Orange colour). As you can see on the leaderboard to the left, I am 1st. My name is also highlighted in the colours of the jersey, indicating I own it 🙂A landscape shot of one part of the island. There is an observatory up a mountain as you can see…Evening shot.I unlocked the Zipp 202 Firecrests!

Mileage (including last few days of October): 371.7 miles

Elevation gain (including last few days of October): 17,718 ft

Time ridden (including last few days of October): 18 hrs 25 mins

Cumulative mileage (since 1st September): 1653.6 miles

Cumulative elevation gain (since 1st September): 81,078 ft

Cumulative time ridden (since 1st September): 92 hrs 38 mins

So, this month I have ridden 1000+ miles and climbed nearly 50,000 ft in vertical elevation!!!

Ciao for now 🙂