No Pain No Gain

Well I'm a week into my training schedule and it's going well so far.

The diet which I thought would be the worst part isn't so bad - in fact at some meals I feel really stuffed. A typical day is as follows:

Breakfast:- bowl of porridge with ground cinnamon and chopped banana, two slices of wholemeal toast lightly buttered, glass of milk and my supplements.

Lunch:- feta, spinach and potato fritatta, apple and banana.

Dinner:- wholemeal pasta/whole rice, three portions of veg and steamed chicken/fish.

This week I've lost 5lb so far and 3% body fat.

Training this week has consisted of gym sessions on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday with rest days on Tuesday and Friday.

Saturday was a really hard interval session comprising of the following:-

4:00 minute warm up
1:30 tempo riding
2:00 high speed tempo riding
15 kilo efforts with 1:00 recovery between the efforts
4:00 warm down

It was complete and utter agony from the 6th kilo onwards and upon getting off the bike I really struggled not to vomit. After reading Sir Chris Hoy's autobiography I kind of expected this but asked his advice via twitter and got the following message from him.

@AndyCreer sadly it's just all part of the fun I'm afraid. Bad news is the better you get the more you are able to hurt yourself!

Saturday evening was the final trip down to the National Cycling Centre for the climax of the Revolution series featuring a certain Chris Hoy. If you've never been to one of these meetings before you get to see a real cross section of talent competing in a wide range of track disciplines.

This morning I've been out for a chilly base building ride but the legs are a bit sore after yesterdays efforts and from ignoring the 'why stand when you can sit' part of the cyclists mantra.