Upwards - slowly but surely!

Did our 50 Miler on the Garmin yesterday.  It's the longest route the Giddy Blondes ever done and he was flagging at the end.  It took in most of the big hills in our area, including the horrible hill at Warren wood - I just about managed this - and the weather wasn't the best.  It was a day where the Sky didn't know whether to laugh  or cry - but it wasn't until the last 10 miles it got really stormy.

We were out for a long time, six and a half hours.  Though according to the Garmin we were only rolling for four and a half.  I thought this would be a long day so I brought some stuff I wanted to try.  Namely the Torq Energy Drink, and a couple of gel shots.  The Torq stuff I mixed up as described and it didn't taste half as powdery as other stuff I've tried.  I also had a couple of Powerbar shots (with caffeine) and High5 gel shots.  The High5 gel shots didn't taste to bad in terms of gel shots (they are, for things to eat, generally foul).  They tasted marginally better than the Powerbar shots, though I think I felt more benefit from the Powerbar shots (I took these a few minutes before heading up the hills and sipped the Torq drink as I went round).

In the end I only had the usual potatoes left, and about half a litre of the 3 litres of liquid with me (2 litres of Torq and 1 litre of water).  After Warren Wood the Giddy Blonde was struggling and I made him have 2 of the gel shots since he pretty much struggled from there.  But when we finished I didn't feel too bad at all and still had some miles in my legs.  I even began to find my 'sweetspot' on climbing hills, the pace where you're managing to get up without it going all white round the eyes at the top.

Below is what I downloaded to Strava - which I'm not entirely happy with 'cos it's a bit too serious.  Also, I had trouble setting up the cadence sensor (after a couple of hours faffing around I think I've fixed it - I'm saving that tale for a 'review').