The art of fighting without fighting......

"Don't do it Alberto, don't do it......."
The words have left my mouth before I can even stop them. I'm so engrossed in the moment that I can't control myself.
I'm on Alpe d'huez, i've just put in a massive effort to stay with the leading group and now that cocky little shit is going to ruin it just like Andy Schleck tried in Liege 20 minutes ago.
Ok, back to reality now. I'm in the living room, on the turbo, in front of the TV with a massive fan struggling to keep me cool as I give it my all to "Beat my ass today so I can kick theirs tomorrow." Welcome to the Sufferfest........
I used to struggle to motivate myself to train. I'd get on the turbo and don't really know what i'm doing so just whir my legs for 30 minutes and then get off. I might as well go running for the good an effort like that would do for my cycling.
What's the answer? That's the question I continually used to ask myself until I stumbled across an advert on a website offering me pain, misery and suffering in the name of sporting success. I wanted it. I wanted it bad.
It was the first step to a faster stronger ride. A simple click and a Paypal payment later, I was downloading Downward Spiral - the first in the line up of 4 releases from the Sufferfest.
That was almost 12 months ago now and here I am trying Angels, the latest offering from the suffer god.
So, what's it like? Brutal, painful and a little bit sadistic. Exactly what you need from a training video. I'm not pretending that training videos are as great as riding or racing on the road because nothing beats the adrenaline of a race but they do offer the next best thing when the weather or time are against you. These videos are only as good as the effort you put in though so be warned. If you want to mince about and not give it your best shot, you will get nowhere and won't benefit from the routine.
I like to give it my all until my nose runs, my thighs pack their bags to leave me and my lungs wish that I smoked so that I could submit them to less suffering. It's brilliant. I get lost in the moment and for an hour I believe that I am everything that is great in racing. When something hurts this much, it must be doing some good.
The efforts are well structured and do a great job of offering just the right amount of effort, making it hard but not impossible. A thumping soundtrack mixed with the recovery and exertion efforts really bring the whole experience to life.
I can't wait for the next installment from The Sufferfest. I'm hoping it's some sort of constant time trial effort with a thumping dub step soundtrack. That'll be nice. Sparticus could do with being brought down a peg or two and as for Wiggins, he should be quaking in his Bonts....

The Commute

I don’t have the luxury of cycling to work as it’s only a 7 minute walk (used to be less but my fitness has dropped remember). I have to find different ways to amuse myself on my journey into the office. One such way that doesn’t risk arrest is to make up names for the same people that I see daily.
I guess it’s a similar situation for everyone who starts work at the same time everyday, you get to share pavement with the same old folk day in, day out.
Everyone has certain character traits or oddities, most of the people I pass tend to look pretty normal with a few exceptions:

Lady Bookworm – This woman should be locked up for her risk to public health. She is always walking along holding a book up in front of her face. How good must a book be to risk safety and stepping in dog poo for? Just once I want to see her walk into a lamppost. Why can’t you just buy an Ipod like everyone else?

Mr Mincer – The lanky gay who can walk perfectly normal most of the time but loves to put on a prance and a pout as soon as a man walks by. Get it into your head, we don’t care which way you swing, you just look like a twat.

The Train Rusher – Nothing is gonna stop this guy getting the train. His body style is arched perfectly so that outstretched arm holding his briefcase acts as a wing. I think the side to side wiggle is a waste of vital milliseconds but it does make you walk like Will from The Inbetweeners. Bravo.

Smokey Joe – I see smoke signals before I see you and to be honest every day I see you is a surprise considering you suck on that cigarette like your life depends on it. I’m just glad to step around your volley of spit as you cough up your lungs.

The Hot Chick – She most definitely is not. Surely there should be a weight to skirt length ratio? Mini-skirts are great, just not when they’re barely covering two doner kebabs.

School Chum – We both know that we went to primary school together but that was when we both liked He-Man and you wet your pants. I’ll happily avoid eye contact with you for the rest of my life. Thankfully, you feel the same……

Lost

This is a plea for help. I’m wondering if anyone out there has seen my fitness because it appears to have gone missing.
We weren’t together for that long but I had become very fond of it. Our relationship was pretty slow to get going but then we had some great times together and in the end grew to love eachother. Was it something I said? Is it my fault that it left?
I keep punishing myself because I guess there’s nobody else I can blame. I had the sweetest thing going and I blew it because I went back to my old lazy ways.
Well, times are changing and I’m not gonna let it go without a fight……

5.30am this morning I was up again and on that turbo, pedalling as fast and as far as I could, in search of the missing…..