When your work gives you the day off, your husband is working and the weather is rubbish, what should you do? Well I had the brilliant brainwave to jump on the turbo trainer and complete one of the long badge routes.
I got everything ready the night before, had my kit laid out and early alarm set. When I got up I packed all the nutrition in a Tesco bag (classy) and headed down to our gym to get started.
About The Route
I was doing The PRL Full route, which was 174km with 2,496m of climbing and it would get me the route badge and the bonus badge for riding 100 miles in a single ride.
I really want to say this was a great route but it wasn’t. Not trying to be overly negative but 11 laps of the London Loop including the Box Hill climb was pretty boring pretty quickly.
- Lap 1 – went pretty quickly and I got a PR on the route
- Lap 2 – I started to realise that this was going to get boring pretty quickly
- Lap 3 – I had decided that I would get off the bike and eat some sandwich, which I did
- Lap 4 and 5 – I was already super bored and all I could think was that I was not even halfway through
- Lap 6 and 7 – getting past the halfway mark should have made it easier but all I could think was how many laps were left
- Lap 8, 9, 10 – I got off the bike after every lap, I had to both physically and mentally
My Nutrition
Knowing that it was going to be a long day in the saddle I wanted to fuel with real food rather than just ‘bike/sports fuel’. Here is what I consumed:
- 2 x 750ml bottles of Torq pink grapefruit energy drink
- 2 x 750ml bottles of Torq orange hydration drink
- 1 x 500ml Coca Cola (I would have a few mouthfuls on each descent of Box Hill)
- 1 x Torq carrot cake flapjack
- 2 x ham sandwiches
- Half a packet of jelly babies
- 1 x banana
- 1 x Reeses Christmas tree (it was Christmas after all)
- 1 x Torq raspberry ripple gel (this was towards the end and was my much needed emergency gel)
I have tried and tested Torq for several years now so I know that it works for me. I also still giggle at a bottle of Coke that Performance Chef, Alan Murchison, refers to as red ambulance and so figured having a bottle handy would be a good idea.
What I Learned
Here’s the list:
- The Prudential Full in real life is 100 miles. I operate in miles and so when the route finished at 108 miles, let me tell you those extra 8 miles count!
- A spare change of bib shorts was a great idea!
- My Premax warm up cream and chamois cream was amazing, as was the recovery cream post ride.
- My Mimic saddle was brilliant!
- My Wahoo Kickr was brilliant!
- Laps were, as expected, dull and boring.
- Having something to watch for the duration was a necessity to help with the boredom.
- My power went down slowly and each lap gradually took longer and varied from the start to the finish by 16 minutes, which is quite a lot.
- I finished putting out less power than I would on a warm up interval and it took everything I had.
- I run Zwift through Apple TV and twice I got a notification from the TV as it was on for so long prompting it to turn off that I had to override – total judgement from the TV!
- I put on gloves after lap 8 as the palms of my hands hurt from leaning on the handlebars (core work needed).
- Getting off the bike several times, changing and walking around meant it took much longer than I originally thought but was needed.
- Whatever way you put it that distance on a turbo trainer has a lack of natural movement and is tough.
- My turbo fan is my best friend.
It sounds quite negative and that is not intentional but I am pleased that it is done and dusted and that I will not have to do it again! I am pretty proud of myself for having the mental strength to get it done, as it would have been so easy to bail.
For those of you that have done the route already – kudos! For those who are planning on doing it – good luck! And yes the pic in the post is clearly not from the session but honestly the last thing on my mind at the end was taking a photo.
Just two route badges left for me to complete – but not just yet ha ha!
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