Fogartys Gap

West Ham 0 Arsenal 3. The game finishes at 6:25am EDT. The dog gets first dibs today, so it’s a dawn walk for us.

The rain stopped less than 48 hours ago as I wheel the Cervélo out the gate about 7:50am, hoping the roads on my 80km Porcupine Flat-Harcourt North circuit are passable. The sun is out and it’s already warm.

I haven’t done the field test to determine my maximum heart rate, so I’m working on a cadence never below 70, even climbing, and a heart rate around or above 130. The heart rate is always between 130 and 155.

Water still seeps across patches of road and there are washouts—driveways, corners, low places, where loose gravel and soil has washed across the bitumen. Near Muckleford Creek ten metres of bitumen has removed itself into a paddock.

The greatest damage is to trees. I pass scores of them, quietly lying on their sides as though having a nap. High winds tear off branches and leave the roads littered with leaves and twigs. There was no wind; there is no debris. These trees, their roots loosened by the run-off, simply keeled over under the weight of water in their foliage.

At Porcupine Flat I turn hard left into Fogartys Gap Road. A col is a gap or pass: this is the Col du Fogarty. At 419m it’s a doddle. But after a stop at 56kms to eat a nut bar and check out the overflow at Barkers Creek Reservoir, nothing is a doddle. My legs just don’t want to turn any more.

I flog myself up to the gap at Harcourt North (the Col du Harcourt Nord) but the legs still don’t respond. I flog myself up Laudens Hill coming back into Bendigo and remember my old training principle: always finish strong. So I work hard along Retreat Road. For me there is no retreat. The ride is 82.57kms at 25.9kph.

I think I’m making slow improvement. Tomorrow the field test.