As you may well imagine, the inclement weather has made 'proper' outdoor training pretty difficult over the past few weeks. All but the die-hard, tight-wearing members of the cycling community seem to have packed up their hi-vis clobber and retreated indoors of late, and I'm no different. I had hoped to be able to continue with my outdoor rides until the end of November at least, but you'd have to be mental to go out in this! I did manage one short outdoor ride of about 6 miles during the first few days of the month, but even that was a fairly miserable experience.
The purchase of a turbo trainer, however, has turned out to be a decent investment, so despite the weather I have been able not only to maintain my fitness levels, but actually build on them. I am conscious of the fact that the trainer is no substitute for proper road riding (not to mention more boring and far less rewarding), so I have tried to keep the trainer sessions as varied as possible by varying their duration and intensity. For example, sessions have ranged from 2-3 hr stamina sessions (spent spinning away in front of countless iplayer/4OD repeats) to shorter, more intense sprint/recovery sessions which usually last between half an hour and an hour, depending on energy levels, my will to live, etc.
All in all I reckon I've done about 8.5 hrs of stamina stuff (broken down into rides of 2hrs, 2.5hrs and 3hrs) and about 2 hrs of sprint training (in 30-60min sessions). This is still way below the level of work that I'll need to put in when the new year comes around, but I'm fairly pleased with what I've managed.
Apologies again for the lack of decent stats this month, but it's just been a case of putting in hard time on the trainer and waiting for the snow to disappear.
Roll on 2011....
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