They were  like a hungry pack of wolves circling a poor injured fawn, my two ride partners were all over my back wheel, the Roly Rouleur was struggling and struggling badly.

Just 7 miles in to our ride last weekend, that was to take in the well ridden hills at Newlands Corner, Leith Hill and Box Hill, I had nothing in my legs, empty, wooden, hollow.

I have ridden upward of 40 miles per ride for the last few weekends and had no idea why today of all days, where one of my ride buddies had a new bike to show off, and I had to show off to our other training partner, this being their first ride, I had to have a ridiculously early Bonk?!

Reaching the summit (not really a summit, its barely a bump in the road) of Newlands Corner I seriously considered turning for home with tail between my legs to gorge on coffee and cake but thankfully willpower prevailed and I fought on.

So to Leith Hill (having never climbed it before) up a steep narrow road we went for just a few seconds before starting down the other side, wait what? Surely three new Strava KOMs have been crowned with our 30 second ascents? Or, we had taken a wrong turn (aided i may aid by a sign clearly stating ‘Leith Hill’)….. we retraced our steps.

Another sign and another wrong turn meant we missed it again!! My now woodworm infested wooden pins were on the brink of snapping so we continued on to Box Hill without launching another futile bid to find the highest point in Surrey (maybe we should have just looked up).

Box Hill, normally an ascent I love, today nearly finished be off. Seriously I think I was overtaken by an old man riding a bike with a wicker basket at one point, but what felt like 7 hours later I arrived at the top to a sea of lycra!! There was even a certain sweary celebrity chef enjoying the gorgeous weather.

Coffe and a flap jack later we descended and rolled our way back home. I was constantly spat out the back of the group any time the road rose even minutely, and the panic and worry over fitness was creeping up like a black cloud especially in light of my upcoming challenges (check out ‘Charity’ for details).

I got home and mulled over the shocking performance of my ride, much like Peter Sagan must have been doing until very recently. This is when my wife suggested that maybe the lack of sleep the night before thanks to our gorgeous bundle of chaos, may offer an explanation. But we never get much sleep these days and as I reached for the hay fever tablets i noticed something on the packet ‘may cause drowsiness’, say what?! I had double dosed these just before I went out this morning!!

So i cling on to this finding and pray that these and not my belly were to blame, only time will tell!!