Egg and the Treacherous Turbo

The week after my birthday celebrations was like a feast of calorific indulgence. All the gifts of chocolate that needed to be gotten rid of (you can't just leave chocolate in the house: blasphemy) and enormous amounts of cake that I couldn't see go to waste, culminating in a gin and laughterfest with late-night cheese-munching when some old friends visited on Saturday.


The only other time that I have such huge, extended eating binges is when I'm poorly and sit at home, scoffing to make myself feel better. The difference this time round was that I managed to fit in some exercise around my eating. Those of you that have to fit in exercise around work will know that this can be tough, leaving you feeling drained. In fact - if anything - it enhanced my training, all that sugar and extra calories to burn. It just so happens that by a stroke of luck I chose the coldest week ever to wallow in all things cocoa, I'm sure this kept me a bit warmer than I would have been otherwise..

I met with friends and coaches-in-training - Leo and Nicky - on Friday. Nicky had offered to structure my training for me so that it yields greater results rather than my usual haphazard "just train as much as physically possible" approach. It's probably worth mentioning that we discussed the plan over two enormous, meat-filled pizzas.


The great thing about getting a plan from these guys is that they know me really well, they've known me since I started out in my healthy quest and since I first stepped onto a road bike. The bad thing about it is that they know me really well; including what I neglect in my training and what I always slack off on.


As such the plan included my hours of weight-training which I love. It also included three mandatory swims a week which - as I have shown in the past - will be a struggle. The other thing on the plan that kept cropping up was turbo training. 


As ice has coated the roads with it slippery nastiness, I have been doing hardly any cycling. I've hardly been doing any mountain biking either as Roxy is having some health problems and needs to see the doctor. With my plans for next year being heavily weighted on the side of cycling - it is time this was addressed.


A turbo trainer turns your bicycle into an indoor torture machine. It's sort of like spinning's evil twin. It was designed by someone utterly ridiculous as a way to make people hate their bikes. I've had good intentions in the past about getting on the turbo but made it to all of about 20 minutes before having a hissy fit and getting off. My plan includes turbo sessions of 2 and a half to 3 hours!


After failing to manage my planned turbo session on Sunday (due to a lack on motivation, brought on by aforementioned gin), I managed to squeeze an hour and a quarter in on Monday morning before work - I was knackered! Unlike a spinning bike you actually have to push ALL the time on a turbo to keep the cadence up.


I was chuffed that I'd managed to stay on the thing for that long though, so I'm raising a glass of gin to the turbo: here's to making it to 3 hours!