Road Bike Training Program

It's nearly the end of January and I've done no sea kayaking this year!

That will change soon as we start shooting DVD-2 at the end of this month.

In the meantime, I'm concentrating on my cycling, and I plan to try using the training programme in this book, 'The Time-crunched Cyclist'.

Just reading it makes me exhausted!

The notion behind it is this: normal training plans, which build and endurance base then gradual add speed intervals, work really well provided you can guarantee more than eight hours of effort each week.

In summer that's fine, and I clock up (many) more hours than that.

But I have entered two sportives in May; the 81 mile Etape Caledonia and the 95 mile Skye Mor. Early mornings and evenings are still dangerously dark on our single-track roads, so I must squeeze my training into less time.

The training plan in this book crams the workload into fewer hours in a way which just might work. Either that or you'll find me in the Belford Hospital clutching my chest.

First step is to do two speed tests to determine my average heart-rate at close to maximum effort. I'll do that next weekend. Then the 'fun' begins.