Winter training starts with a whimper

Well, after having the best part of a month off the bike I certainly noticed it as all those odd bottles of wine, chocolate and cakes cought up. In terms of fitness it has not dropped off a cliff but it is certainly noticeble as to what you loose after a few weeks of treating your body like s**t. For my next years training I need to get into a more balanced regime, which does not involve vegitating in front of the TV, rather sleeping instead as this will go some way to remaining health.

Tube and train travel in London seems to be a strange place in winter as hoards of people insist on dragging themselves into work coughing and spluttering all over. Thoughts on this are to keep my immune system as topped up as possible without reaching for the vitamins until required. From a training and balance perspective this also means base is base training, no mad moments on the club runs and lots of sleep so that I'm in great shape for late March before winding things up.

Goals for the winter are to get out for at least 6 hours at the weekends and include indoor trainer sessions on Monday, Wednesday and Friday towards the back end of winter. This should give me a block of 4 days volume and a weekly total of around 10-12 hours of quality riding. With this volume, based at the right intensity, I figure that it should be enough to get me where I want to be by around May/June, which is in the >400W category. 1st race will be mine.


Finally got around to putting a new chain on, although I still need to give the bike a bit more of a clean and sat on the trainer for half an hour easy spin. Next real job is to get the sterio moved in and update the music tracks, then I'm all set for a stready build.

My ergomo battery finally gave up the ghost and cyclepowermeters were very quick to exchange the unit out, arriving the next day, which is a rare level of customer service these days. For my next bike (2008 purchase) a power meter will be a must adn they will be top of the list.