My March 100km spin was done under the 2km lockdown restriction. This was still in place up to the end of April and I just couldn’t raise the motivation to repeat the March experience which wasn’t enjoyable at all.

This month the restriction was relaxed to 5km from home. Doesn’t sound like much but it opened up one good route. It also allows the option of the main road between Killygordon and Castlefinn. Combining this and the hillier route over the last couple of weeks I’ve managed to get my cycling back up to a decent level again and have even begun to enjoy it! In April I’d only managed 161km but up until yesterday morning I had almost 270km for May.

All this additional cycling had given me the legs, the confidence and the motivation to make sure I didn’t miss the May 100km.

Yesterday was forecast to be the hottest day of the year so far with temperatures set to hit 25-28°C during the afternoon. That might seem low to many but for us it’s about 10°C warmer than usual. I didn’t want to have much climbing so I decided to use the figure 8 loop I’d used for shorter spins. This goes between Killygordon and Castlefinn using both sides of the river and an additional crossing in approximately the middle at Liscooley. It’s a rolly kind of road with a couple of short steep climbs but at 135m of elevation in 17km it’s as flat as it gets around here.

I decided that I also didn’t fancy the climb up to our house for breaks or at the finish so drove down and parked the car at the picnic stop just outside Killygordon. This worked really well as I was able to break the spin into 3 chunks. At 35km I stopped for a quick break to replenish my bottle and eat a bar. At 70km I stopped for a proper break and something more substantial. A cool bag with food and water in the boot was perfect to keep everything chilled and provide me with a cold bottle each time I stopped. Lunch sitting under the shade of a tree was very pleasant and there was a much reduced temptation to stop altogether as I wasn’t at home.

As an additional bonus I was able to finish the final loop slightly shorter, avoid the climb up from Liscooley Bridge and stay on the main road all the way from Castlefinn to Killygordon.

In the end up I felt pretty good at the finish. There was a bit of a breeze (about 20km/hr from SSE) that was a pain when it was a headwind but the short loop meant it didn’t last long and it helped reduce the effects of the worst of the heat and gave me a nice boost on the opposite side of the loop. Last night my legs were tired but with the lack of climbing it was very little compared to other recent and shorter spins and didn’t prevent me going for a run this morning. All in a very enjoyable spin and a completely different experience to March!