Slowly getting back into riding again!

The last two weeks I have been fairly consistent with my riding, doing 45 minutes to an hour after work 3 times a week and doing 2 hours in the one ride on my days off work, which are Wednesday and Sunday, First 2 hour ride I was feeling strong but resisted the urge to push on and just rode at a steady 17 mph listening to my ipod and staying on the flat, still felt like along time on the bike and was tired once home but recovered very quickly.
Last wednesday was just over 2 hours and felt good all the way on a nice sunny day, again recovered enough to manage a trip to Ikea and buy a wardrobe and chest of draws, only just got them in my car even with the back seats down. Tend to have Tuesday and Thursday as easy days, just the commute to work and back, so I head out Richmond way to Twickerham then left to Kingston and back through Richmond and the south circular back to home. Managed this on thursday and Friday, just went a fraction quick on the friday so felt a little tired on the saturday.
Sunday came round and I went out with Sam at 11am and headed to Richmond park, not my initial choice but since I haven't been there much thought it would be Ok, so busy with traffic, Sam was on race bike with deep section carbon wheels and in shorts to get the last of the warm sunshine for the year, I am all kitted out for winter riding with my mudguards and lights on my training bike,
Ended up riding 1-2 mph faster than I would have liked, heart-rate was very high at times but not for very long, I was Ok for about 1 and a half hours but then I faded down to only one pace which was 16 mph, by know Sam excepted the pace, any other time of the year I would have just let Sam ride away and settle at my pace, need to stay in the comfort zone on my winter rides, otherwise I may as well start racing again.
Do enough of that throughout the summer months so feel entitled to just be rolling along at this time of the year. Want to gradually build up my two main rides of the week to 5-6 hours by March, so have plenty of time, just don't want to feel to tired doing it. When I got home this sunday I was blown to bits after 2hrs and 20 minutes of riding. After eating lunch and a shower I thought I would be sleeping but instead I made the most of a sunny day and went and topped up with supplies from Sainsbury and then decided to wash my filthy car, been parked under a pear tree while I was away in New Zealand so stained with the residue from the fruit that had rotted away on the bonnet, had to T-cut as normal polish didn't have any effect, started all this at 2.30 and finished in the dark at 5.30pm, think I was high from the fumes as well as low on energy because once inside I kept walking into the chairs and door-frames as I walked about, sat down and watched the last hour of Star Wars, Return of the Jedi and stayed watching TV until 10pm, To tired to move, had a bad nights sleep as my legs were pinging as if I had done a race anyway, had to rub some Born Muscle Relax into them to get them under control, feeling very sleepy now, have a big day tomorrow with work.
2008 product launch for Serotta bikes and our Glider frames, shall be interesting, I shall be on one of the first of it's kind from Serotta new bike frames for next year doing something I haven't done for along time but am pretty good at when I was, can't say anymore than that, except I will be going very fast on this frame! there will be a prototype that Ben Serotta has bought with him to show at the product launch.
Thats me, will try to keep more up to date reports on my winter riding, later.