A Pembrokeshire Cycle

After an early 4am  start on Saturday for my Coast Path run from Maltraeth to Holy Island, I had an even earlier start on Sunday for a Pembrokeshire Cycle. I was up at 3:30am (early even by my standards) so that I could get ready and leave the house by 4:30am This meant I could arrive in Fishguard for 6:30am, do a 3 hour bike ride and still get home before midday to build a new shed in the garden. It also worked out well with the weather as it was forecast to start raining at around 9:30am so hopefully I’d finish my ride before the rains arrived.

I was cycling around the route of the Fishguard Ocean Lava Half-Ironman distance Triathlon. I hoping to do it in a few weeks time so thought I’d see what the course was like. I did indeed get to Fishguard (or more accurately Goodwick) before 6:30am and after putting my bike together and getting changed I set off under cloudy skies at 6:18am.

A Pembrokeshire Cycle

The route itself was nice and the roads at this time of day were really quiet. It’s quite a tough route though with no real flat sections and what felt like lots more uphill than downhill sections. The road surface was quite harsh much of the time as well. The route follows the A487 into St Davids, loops around the town and then follows a small coastal road back through Trefin and out onto the main road again. It then heads a little way back towards Goodwick before taking a loop around Mathry and heading back to St David’s once again on a second loop around the town and out through Tefin and Mathry. After the second loop it then follows the A487 back to Goodwick.

It seemed really hard to me though. Usually I’d be aiming for a time of around 3 hours for a 56 miles ride. This was actually a little shorter at 54.3 miles but it still took me 3½ hours! My average speed was barely over 15mph which is terrible. Hopefully it was just that my legs were tired after the previous days tough Coast Path adventure. I think I may have to try this pembrokeshire cycle again before the race just to convince myself that I can do it a little quicker than that and that I could run a half marathon afterwards. Today I was drained by the end of it. I can’t see it being much easier though so this Half-Ironman distance race may be just a little more than I’m ready for at the moment!

Despite taking longer than expected, I did make it back just before the rain started and still got home before midday whereupon I made a start on the new shed. It wasn’t long before the rain became much heavier though so the shed will have to wait for a drier day.

2 Responses

  1. Avatar forComment Author Mum says:

    Just don’t over do it Al, remember it should be fun, both the training and the event xx

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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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