'I hope you have taken your druggies'

Quite a confusing title for a blog post i think you will agree, but think how confusing it seemed whilst riding up a hill in north Staffordshire this morning with the 'group', 15 had already become 3 by this point, and being shouted this at you by a runner coming the other way. I like the two guys i was with, Mikey C of the new Raleigh Team and Mark Lovatt, ironically in his old GB Kit, were absolutely baffled by the comment. I'd still be intrigued as to know what the guy meant as ironically the 1500m Olympic Champion was stripped of his gold medal after later testing positive for the most famous of all EPO types CERA which following this mans logic i should be painting ever runner with the same brush. More importantly cycling, whilst apparently having a lot of cheats if the recent doping relevations and positives is anything to go by, seems to be one of the few sports out there that seems to be cleaning its act up. Footballers, for example, do not even have to be signed up to the whereabouts system only running the risk of dope tests at games...mental! Anyway before this turns into a total rant which no doubt will appear on one of my blogs as no doubt some other high profile rider with test positive this season i best tell you what i have been up to.

This week i have managed to amass a total of 20hrs on the bike whilst starting to put some efforts into my rides, not bad considering the weather here has ranged from grim to grimer, this wasn't helped by emails from my teammate Phil who is in Gran Canaria at the moment living it up at 25 plus degrees. Although riding in this weather can be depressing as long as it isn't totally chucking it down when i leave the house the hardest yards are always the first and as soon as i have left the town i soon remeber how much i enjoy being out and riding a normal life just isn't for me!

In addition to being able to train on the road again the most significant thing going on this week is the Tour Down Under, after a long winter break bike racing is back on tv, improving motivation immediately and giving me something to slob out to when i get back from training rides. It has been great to see the Sky boys riding and even more impressive to see how well Russel Downing seems to be coping with it all, although his chance in life has come late he seems to be seizing it with both hands, and was showing everyone how to corner at the Cancer Criterium during the early stages of the Sky leadout.

Other than that there is not much to report other than i have another 2 weeks of work to do, totalling 6 shifts after which i will be getting ready for the off in the middle of Feb...can't wait!

Winter Blues

Well it has been a while since my last post and a lot has happened...i think. Firstly i had the madness known as Christmas to get through, and when you are working at a supermarket madness is the only word to describe it, during this period i also had my first experience of working nightshifts which i entered with the very naive view of thinking that this would be a good idea as i would be being paid more and could train a lot, in reality i ended up feeling like a zombie for 2 and a half weeks, slept through most of Christmas day and was in bed by 10:30pm on New Years Eve having felt like i had lost the previous 2.5 weeks of my life! On the plus side i managed to set myself a personal best of hours without sleep of 31 but i would much rather have swapped that for having a life.

I did however manage to ride for an hour everyday on the turbo when i got back in from my night shifts, before collapsing in bed for 7hrs before the next shift, i really do not know how people cope doing nightshifts long term, i guess they don't ride a bike for starters.

Thankfully my last nightshift finished the day before New Years eve and i am now back on to the day shift for a few more weeks. Although the anticipation of being able to ride my bike and get some decent miles in seemed doomed to failure as i only managed 3 days of plus 4hr rides before the most recent spell of bad weather hit and the roads became unridable, including the main roads. Which led to me spending 14hrs on the turbo last week, which if i am honest has done me no good at all, as i am writting this now with a massive headcold and sore throat, which i am pretty sure has been brought about from riding hard on the turbo in my garage, which isn't much warmer than outside. To the point at which if i did more than 2hrs on there, and yes i have done and will do again if i have to, my bottles froze, not cool, i was even forced to wear long fingered gloves one day...madness.

So i am now having a few days off before hitting the training hard as it looks like the temperatures will be up by the weekend, well positive at least!

Take it easy