I don’t really understand why many cyclists use turbo trainers in the winter. I can’t stand mine for longer than an hour at a time, so it’s only really any use for intervals. I’ve spent the winter riding for long periods and building a base – if I rode for 4 hours on an indoor trainer, sheltered from the bad weather or not, I’d probably curl up and die of utter boredom. When it gets to this time of year I find it really useful for doing the stuff that you just can’t do on the road without risking getting run over by a bus whilst your lungs try to eject themselves through your chest, your throat starts to bleed and your eyes fill with sweat. Ok, it’s not quite that bad 😉

Anyway, I’ve started using the torture machine again for the first time in months. I completed a relatively short interval session on it at the weekend and it came as a bit of a shock. Hopefully it’ll get “easier” thus allowing me to do longer sessions. I’ve also started to do more hill repeats – last night’s road ride consisted of a hilly 35 mile warm-up followed by some repeats on the horrible northern side of the hill at Affetside.

The ride (not the reps) was good fun, despite getting another soaking and almost getting t-boned by a pillock who either didn’t realise I was doing 30mph or just wanted to scare me. I’m wearing orange and I’ve got a stupidly-bright LED on the front of the bike so he must have seen me. Eejit.

Observant readers will also notice the running and rowing mileage totals have been increasing too J