Nice day. Cold and a bit blowy, but the roads were dry, so I extracted the red Boardman from the garage and set off in the bright autumn sunshine. My right knee has been unusually sore for the last couple of weeks but it seemed to be subsiding over the last couple of days. So I thought I'd keep it down to 15 or so.
As usual I set off in the general direction of Twycross, through Heather. Interestingly, the roads stopped being dry by the time I got to Snarestone. Must have had different weather to the west.
I took the right turn to Sheepy when I got to Twycross, but that route would have taken me over 20 miles in total and I thought better of it immediately, taking the left turn back onto the main road after a few metres. Down the A444, left onto Gibbet Lane and home through Bilstone, Shackerstone and Heather while listening to the footy on 5 Live. Happy days. Still listening now and it looks like the bloody Croatians have done us again, as I type.
I'd done 18.06 by the time I got home so I miscalculated a bit. Well actually I didn't calculate at all. I misestimated.
I decided to use the Strava app on my Android smartwatch this time. I took a spare as I didn't expect it to last the whole 15+ miles but in fact it did; I started the ride with the battery on 79% charge and it was down to 34% 18 miles later - despite being set to have the screen on all the time. I'm doing rather a lot of <25 mile rides at the moment, so that's useful to know.
It has a heart rate monitor built in that uses a little flashing LED on the caseback to take your pulse (I assume) somehow. 132bpm, Strava tells me, with a max of 180. I have no idea what the significance of those figures might be. Just had a look at Nick (S)'s most recent ride on Strava and I see that his average heart rate was 148bpm, but then again his average speed was 3.6 mph quicker.
I will keep my distances down to 15-20 miles or so for the time being, to be on the safe side. It's not like I'm missing out on long days and glorious weather.
https://www.strava.com/activities/1972041445