Sunday looks like it will be okay for a decent ride so I'm trying to motivate myself to do something which in 20 years of cycling I've not been able to psych myself up for - what I call the 'Trawden-Nedwart'.
I have a very hilly 29 mile loop out to the village of Trawden and back. The route has long steady hills, medium length steep hills and short, very steep ones adding up to about 3,300 ft of climbing.
I normally do the loop anticlockwise so that is 'Trawden'. From time to time, I do it clockwise and I call that 'Nedwart'.
The rules of Trawden-Nedwart would be - do the Trawden ride, go home, sit down and have a bite to eat and a drink, then get back out on the bike and do the loop again in the opposite direction. Forget the physical effort required to drag my 15 stone carcass over all those hills - it's the mental toughness to go back out for the second half that I'm struggling with. It's so much easier just to do one big loop.