I am used to huffing and puffing up a hill but what I am not used to is what happened to me yesterday.
I went out for a brief 15 miles on Saturday followed by a rideout to a café on Sunday morning approx 16 to 17 miles each way. On the way back some went on to Lunch and a few went back myself included. We had a new rider with us who was suffering a bit so the pace back was slow 10-11mph. The new rider split off after about 3 miles and a couple of others accompanied him home so it was just me and this other chap who said lets up the pace a bit if your OK with it (me thinking he meant up to about 14-16mph avg being the usual pace the CTC has when riding back informally from elevenses so of course I said no probs). The next thing I knew we were floating around 18-21 mph mark whilst on the flat.
The route was flattish with a couple of climbs (Little Burstead going Back to Rayleigh in Essex via a semi direct route if anyone knows it). Funnilly enough I was OK with the pace. Get to a hill (Crays Hill in Essex on the A129) and this is a short and sharp hill not too long but quite steep.
Although I got up this hill OK albeit quite slowly my legs just felt numb and if they belonged to someone else. I found it quite hard to actually get my brain to register to my legs that they should turn the pedals It really did feel as though I had no control over my legs. To add to the weirdness once I got to the top I was not really out of breath I was able to talk quite easily and was nowhere near gasping.
We resumed a similar pace again on the flat although this time the guy leading was around 17/18 and all felt normal he went off one way and I carried on home legs felt like they belonged to me again. There is one last hill nowhere near as steep as the earlier but a little bit longer and it happenned again. After that any incline of any gradient made me feel like I was pedalling through rice pudding.
I am presuming and indeed hoping that this is quite normal and I just reached my anaerobic threshold which is fine and will be overcome with more time in the saddle but I never experienced anything like that last year.
I went out for a brief 15 miles on Saturday followed by a rideout to a café on Sunday morning approx 16 to 17 miles each way. On the way back some went on to Lunch and a few went back myself included. We had a new rider with us who was suffering a bit so the pace back was slow 10-11mph. The new rider split off after about 3 miles and a couple of others accompanied him home so it was just me and this other chap who said lets up the pace a bit if your OK with it (me thinking he meant up to about 14-16mph avg being the usual pace the CTC has when riding back informally from elevenses so of course I said no probs). The next thing I knew we were floating around 18-21 mph mark whilst on the flat.
The route was flattish with a couple of climbs (Little Burstead going Back to Rayleigh in Essex via a semi direct route if anyone knows it). Funnilly enough I was OK with the pace. Get to a hill (Crays Hill in Essex on the A129) and this is a short and sharp hill not too long but quite steep.
Although I got up this hill OK albeit quite slowly my legs just felt numb and if they belonged to someone else. I found it quite hard to actually get my brain to register to my legs that they should turn the pedals It really did feel as though I had no control over my legs. To add to the weirdness once I got to the top I was not really out of breath I was able to talk quite easily and was nowhere near gasping.
We resumed a similar pace again on the flat although this time the guy leading was around 17/18 and all felt normal he went off one way and I carried on home legs felt like they belonged to me again. There is one last hill nowhere near as steep as the earlier but a little bit longer and it happenned again. After that any incline of any gradient made me feel like I was pedalling through rice pudding.
I am presuming and indeed hoping that this is quite normal and I just reached my anaerobic threshold which is fine and will be overcome with more time in the saddle but I never experienced anything like that last year.
and it being still pretty early in the 'season', the pace was high for you and then a hill. I think I would have struggled too 
.
