January

• Month Training (3 weeks) : 39:15 hours - 28hours on a bike (+ 4hrs commute)
• Monthly Road Miles : 281 miles
• Hours to date : 209 hours
• Mileage to date : 1468 miles

Arrived back from NZ at the end of the first week to snow, ice, no central heating, a defrosted deep freeze and ice inside the house. Training plans for my first weekend back in tatters. Defrosted the house and walked to the supermarket and back. Not sure this counts as training. Given up alcohol too (for the RAAM) so couldn’t even drown my sorrows.

Then there was more snow, couldn’t get the car out the drive to go and pick up my bike so couldn’t even turbo-train – frustrated. Tried getting out on the mountain bike, unsurprisingly lethal but good enough to get to the station and into London. Finally managed to do some exercise on the Thursday. It hurt, my quiet optimism that the rest would do me good has immediately evaporated.....

Second week back, back into a routine - felt like training not ‘just’ exercising. Still painful.

Experimented with the team at trying to replicate RAAM ride patterns using turbo trainers (30 minutes on - 30 minutes off for five sets). Much harder than I had expected both physically and mentally. Mentally the temptation to clock watch is overpowering – watched kettles don’t boil and watched clocks on turbo trainers stop!

Managed the first ‘long ride’ of the year with the team, 180k. Took just over 6hrs including stops so nearly 30kmh - too fast. Felt in trouble at 3 hours so impressed at myself hanging in there for another 3 hours home! Roads terrible and muddy, new mud guards at least kept my bum dry and stopped the nappy rash – happy days! Less happy, for the RAAM I am going to need to ride this distance, at this speed, on my own, for 7 consecutive days – quite scary.

Rode the Hell of Ashdown sportive....... avoided the bonk wagon (I could explain but, if you don’t know it is more fun to speculate!). Didn’t enjoy it (never settled into the ride), didn’t ride well, didn’t pace it well and the car broke down on the way home... bad end to the month.
Mike advised on new weights / core programme (good news) but still only doing one session a week... can’t quite work out how to do more

Flexibility has taken an absolute hammering with the increased mileage and the increased weights – I haven’t quite got my stretching routine right and ‘must do better’.... (Milene - my Pilates instructor was unimpressed)

Baseline fitness test completed. Mark and Michelle at Trust4you seem too nice to 1st starve you, 2nd dress you up as Darth Vader and then 3rd make you exercise until you drop whilst 4th taking blood samples. All in the name of science. Results informative (not dying seems to be a pass!) and these will help tailor my individual training programme to address the areas I am weak (of which there are many!)

Hopeful for a solid months training in Feb (including a training camp ‘with’ the Rapha Condor Sharp team down in Majorca). Big question....Can the weather really remain this miserable? I suspect is the answer is: probably.