Weekend Activities

It was a little difficult to fit my usual weekend activities in this weekend but we managed it. Friday was a manic day thanks to the Eisteddfod that Morgan was playing in. Saturday was just as frantic as it was Morgan’s laser tag birthday party. Jay, Charlie and Jack were visiting for the weekend too.

90 Minutes in the Pain Cave

I did manage a very tough 90 minute workout on the turbo trainer on Saturday morning though. And when I say tough it was! One of those sessions where right from the first 10 minute interval you think there’s no way you’re going to be able to finish it, but I stuck with it and finish it I did! It was a TrainerRoad workout called Mary Austin, which  is 3 sets of 2×10-minute intervals consisting of 2-minute step up from 95% to 100% to 105% FTP and then back down again. Rest between intervals is a quick minute while the recovery between each set of intervals is 5 minutes. The chart below doesn’t begin to show the pain and suffering involved!

Mary Austin

Mary Austin

A Weekend Run Home

After 90 minutes in the pain cave came some frantic rushing around, cleaning and tidying and then an afternoon in the woods for Morgan’s laser tag birthday party. I then decided to run home from Pwll Crwn woods. I had my trail running shoes on so after running along the road into Bow Street I headed into Bryn Castell and then up into the hills between Bow Street and Llandre. It’s quite a climb up over the hills here and the ground was wet and muddy. It was a pleasant day though, cool and cloudy but dry and with only light winds. I ran up over the top, following the footpath over stiles and through various gates, taking in the views across Bow Street and out to the hills beyond. I then descended through the woods into Llandre and then back up behind the church onto the hills above Borth. From here I ran down the hill towards Upper Borth, but took a detour right onto a bridal path high above the caravan park which then contoured around the hill, back inland a little, before dropping down to the road at Dolybont. I ran through Dolybont and out onto the small roads and trails behind the village that lead back to the banks of the River Leri. I’d ran the entire length of the River Leri last weekend, so rather than follow the same track along the water’s edge I headed out across the railway line and out onto the beach at Borth and ran along the beach and the golf course home.

The entire run ended up being just short of 10 miles.

We had a relatively chilled evening after that with the boys playing on the computer and Jay, Anna and I watching TV.

A Sunday Morning Social Ride

We’d planned for Jay to stay over so that he could come for a ride with me on Sunday, so we decided to join in with the Aberystwyth SBR group ride. I’ve been riding with them for a few weeks now, but as the faster group were heading south towards Tregaron we thought we’d tag along with the slower group this time. I wasn’t sure if Jay would enjoy trying to hang on to the faster group and they were going the wrong way for us anyway. Jay needed to be back for midday really so that he could get changed and head back home to Bristol. The slower group were heading off through Borth, past our house at Ynyslas and on to the Clettwr Cafe which sounded perfect for us. We could ride into Aberystwyth first, join them out to the cafe stop and then leave them after the cafe and ride home.

As usual, we were up and ready to go cycling far too early. We could have been out on the road at 7:o0am but had to hang around waiting so that we didn’t get to Aberystwyth too early. In the end, come 8am we could wait no longer and headed off anyway. We were of course far too early by the time we got to Aberystwyth despite taking it super easy, so had a little ride around town and along the prom before heading to the Leisure Centre, still 20 minutes early.

Come 9:30am though there were quite a few cyclists there, so we split into our groups and headed off on our own separate rides. Our group consisted of me, Jay, Nia, John, Alex and Morgan (who I hadn’t met before). It was a lovely sunny day with temperatures just above freezing and virtually no wind. This all led to a nice chilled social ride out to Lovesgrove, into Bow Street and then Clarach before heading along the coast road to Borth, out to Ynyslas and then for a coffee and cake stop at Café Cynfelyn (which I still call Clettwr Café for some reason!)

Suitably refreshed, we jumped back on our bikes and headed off once again. This time everyone else continued on back to Lovesgrove and were planning on heading out along Cwm Rheidol. Jay and I peeled off in Taliesin and tackled the climb up and over to Dolybont before once again riding through Borth to arrive home at midday.

The boys headed over to the beach for a play in the dunes whilst we got changed and had some lunch and then Jay, Charlie and Jack headed home. Another busy weekend and we did manage to fit it all in after all.

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Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.

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