back to training

there are ways to train and there are ways not to train. mostly you know what these are but sometimes you need to challenge them just to see what happens. so it was back in december, what with all the miserable weather and whatnot, that i decided i'd put off starting on the turbo trainer. and put it off and put it off some more. until, barring a couple of short mtb rides, it was february and at last a decent spell of dry weather.

looking every bit the part of fat santa my head was in just the right space to do a few hundred miles of cruising before back to some hefty intervals. except on only my second time out, at that unaccustomed time for me - the weekend - i get hooked up with some guy who, it seems, wants to do a few hills. i should've continued on my training route. i should've listened to my niggley inner feeling that this guy's form maybe wasn't what he was saying as he didn't seem to know the set of hills i was proposing we go up. don't get me wrong, it was a grand day, but more of a strain than i'd planned. following day a quick wee thirty and i got back feeling a bit weaker than i thought. then the pain arrived.

when i told t i'd made a physio appointment she said later she knew it must be bad if i'd made up my mind on my own. and it was. like getting kicked up the backside coupled with having a really bad bum focused toothache. oh aye, and my leg giving way. on a scale of one to ten. said the physio. i shrugged. i don't know. i'm a cyclist. i can take sore. bursitis of my hip joint she said. chronic weakness she said. ultrasound and manipulation follow. much stretching. and then some stomach aching core stability exercises.

all of which are seeming to work and none of which disguises the blunt truth that sees the scales telling me that my winter training 'regime'. you have put on ten lbs the scales blink at me. you are a fat bastard. so, seeing as it was blowing a hoolie and generally pishing down with rain today i finally got back on the trainer. true i've managed some miles on the flat during all of this and my times aren't so bad but nothing quite as isolating as a good aerobic trainer session. i appear in the living room coated in sweat. how was it says trace. that was brilliant, i say, i can't believe i left it alone so long.

sometimes you need to do the stupid thing in order to prove the stupid thing. the thing about the bike is you need to use the bike in order to really use the bike. next year? next year there will be no repeat....