The second of four Audax 200 routes I’d picked for this year is Round The Lough 200 in Larne. It’s on April 18th and ticks the Ulster box for the 4 Provinces Challenge.

However, I have a problem. First of all it’s only 4 weeks after my trip to Ballinasloe. Secondly, we have a work trade show starting on Sunday 19th and running for 3 days. That’s 3 days of long hours, lots of talking to customers and lots of time on my feet. Not ideal recovery. It took at least 3 days to recover after the last 200 and I was still tired later that week.

Second problem, unrelated to the first, is that I’ve done very little cycling (or activity of any sort) since Ballinasloe. I’ve only been out twice.

March 28th (one week after the Audax) I got out with the Club for 63km. I cycled up to Ballybofey, did 40km with the Club Stabiliser Group and cycled home again. It was quite a windy day and wasn’t easy but I was shocked how tired I was during and after the ride!

I had originally planned to go out again on Sunday but the weather was crap with wind and rain and still feeling tired from Saturday it was easy to make the choice to lie on in bed on Sunday morning. I also ended up driving the Dad Taxi at 2am which helped seal the deal. In fairness barely anyone from the Club made it out either!

I did get back out on Tuesday evening. Once again I cycled up from home, did part of the Club ride and cycled home again. I’ve had enough of riding in the dark at this stage so the plan was to get home just as darkness fell. With the hour change at the weekend this was now achievable but two mechanicals with clubmates delayed the start and I ended up riding the last 10min in the dark. It was grand though and a short bit like that wasn’t a hassle as I had good lights and reflectives just in case.

Thursday evening I was unable to get any motivation to go out. I think it was cold and windy again but it’s hard to blame the weather completely as I was out in far worse over Winter!

I had hoped to ride on Easter Saturday and Monday but Storm Dave* blew in on Friday and cancelled all cycling plans for Saturday.

*I think if the Met Office had a proper sense of humour they would have called it Storm Rodney in their follow up reports….

I still had hopes of riding Easter Monday but I woke up with rotten sinus congestion and a banging headache that lasted all day and didn’t really go away until Tuesday. Put me in a stinker of a mood.

The most constructive thing I did last week was to decide to change my Audax plans. With the clash with work the 18th just isn’t feasible. Looking at the Calendar though I’m limited with options. There are only three 200km events in the year for Ulster. The one in September has way too much climbing taking in Torr Head in Co. Antrim. This leaves me with one other option which is on 26th April. It’s the Dark Hedges 200. This is a route I’ve ridden as an event before and one I’ve done as a Permanent a few times. At 1800m of climbing it’s more than I’d like to be doing but beggars can’t be choosers and it’s only(!) 600m more than Larne. I’m hoping that familiarity will compensate for the climbing.

There’s a stinker of a climb to Feeney just after 150km that worries me the most!

The other advantage I had in mind was that it would give me an extra week to train and get ready. In effect it’s simply been an extra week to waste!

I said earlier that I can’t blame the weather but I think I will. The end of March and start of April have been horrible, consistently cold, wet and windy. We’ve even had a number of days with sleet, hail storms and some snow. I really enjoyed riding in Ballinasloe on a day that properly felt like Spring. Now with the time changed and Easter over it just feels like we should be getting some heat, or at at least less cold. It’s dragging me down and I can’t get any motivation to go out and get cold!

I’m loathe to finish on a downer so in the style of Unironedman, here are some things that made me laugh in the last few weeks…