Race Preparation For The New Cycling Season

Christmas and the New Year celebrations are now behind us, our Estate Agent in Ruffec is open again and I can't believe that the new cycling season is only a matter of weeks away. It starts in March but the time flies by and it will be here before I know it.

So here it all begins and the serious training starts. First of all I have to lose the weight I put on over Christmas. Not easy when I have still got a huge box of wine gums and even a bigger Toblerone to eat. My wife Sarah will try and hide these from me. It is also not the nicest time of year to be out on the road. It can be very cold, wet and miserable but it has to be done. Thankfully the winters in the Poitou-Charentes are nice and short so it is not too terrible.

My training starts with lots of long rides arranged around property sale viewings. It can be quite boring if you are doing it on your own but I have a cycling buddy from Belgium and he keeps me motivated and vice-versa. As the season gets a bit nearer the training changes slightly and I have to try and get race fit. The endurance training will get me to the finish line but I need to be able cope with a race situation. I therefore have to build in what is known as interval training. I won't bore you too much with this and the different types but it involves pushing yourself to the limit and learning how to recover quickly so that you can do it all again a few seconds later.

As I say the season will be here before I know it and soon it will be race day. The nerves will kick in and the adrenaline will be flowing. I know that I will be fit and strong but so will everyone else. The buggers!! Over the winter you always forget how hard and how fast these races are. I will no doubt be wondering why the hell I do it! That is a good question but after a few races I am normally finding my race legs and sometimes I actually win something. You never know it might even be a bottle of something nice.