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Apart from the year when I was suffering from a hernia, this has been my worst year for cycling so far. I’ve only been on a couple of rides unfortunately. The main things stopping me from doing more are:

• Lack of time – work is keeping me busy, as well as circuit training and capoeira
• Injuries – I’m determind to get better at running but I still keep getting injuries which is very frustrating
• Lack of sleep – usually when I’m planning to go for a ride, something will stop me sleeping the night before (usually a child)

My inspiration last year for training more was getting a place on RideLondon – sadly, this year I didn’t get a place:

I know that cycling makes me feel better (physically and mentally) but it’s felt like I’ve not had enough hours in the day recently. I must do better.

Running isn’t going much better – the last time I went out for a 5km run, I hurt the outside of my left knee after 2km and had to cut it short. It seems like my IT band is getting irritated. Cycling would sometimes cause problems there but as I’ve not been cycling much recently that’s not the issue! I might need to go and have more gait analysis, or maybe even get some physio.

Capoeira is going OK though, I’m almost getting the hang of doing armada com martelo. I’m still finding it very tiring getting through an hour, even though I seem to be getting fitter in other ways. Hopefully I should be attending my first festival next month and possibly getting my first cord!

I’ve been doing a reasonable amount of circuit training but my time on the bike has been pretty limited as I keep injuring leg muscles! My left calf went this week, as soon as one muscle recovers the next one goes. It has been pretty cold recently so I’m not missing being out in the snow that much, but hopefully I’ll be able to manage a ride or two next week.

Froome

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. I really want to believe that nothing untoward is going on with Chris Froome but Team Sky have not made things easy on themselves this year and it’s just another excuse. I don’t think he’d be daft enough to take too much salbutamol whilst in the red jersey as he knows he’s going to get tested every day, so there must be some other reason for it, but other riders have been suspended for lower levels. If the UCI don’t treat Froome the way they have other riders then it won’t look good for anyone. I hope they can demonstrate there is a legitimate reason for the positive test otherwise all the trust will be gone.

So my groin pain turned out to be an inguinal hernia for which surgery is required – it won’t be until the end of February at the earliest. Ho hum. So my cycling has been massively curtailed – I’ve managed two turbo rides of 20 minutes, the first was OK but the second made me quite sore, although it was a little sore when I first got on. I can cycle on my MTB if I wear a hernia truss but I can’t really wear one over my Lycra without looking even dafter than I would anyway.

I bet this is the year I get a place on Ride London – it’d be typical of my luck! There’s no way I’d be properly fit to do it unless the surgery really was at the end of February and I was able to get some decent training in beforehand (no guarantee of that). At least they give the option to defer entry for a year so I’d have it to look forward to next year. I really just want to go for a decent ride again anywhere though!

This year just gets worse and worse. I managed to do my back in last week (by sneezing, of all things) so have been off the bike. I then got a nasty cold this week so have been exhausted! Hopefully by next week I’ll have fully recovered and be ready to restart training again.

I’ve got some new 25mm Gatorskins to put on the Carrera TDF – I’ve currently got 23mm Gatorskins on there but there is a bit of a slit in the back one which is only going to get worse, so time to switch. I’ve got 25mm on the Ribble so I know it’ll make things a bit more comfortable, looking forward to trying them out.

I’m getting really bored of not being well now – I felt OK again last week and the day after my 35 mile ride I felt the best I had for a long while, only to feel ill again the next morning. I don’t have any energy at the moment and am feeling miserable. I really want to start winter training properly and I keep getting ill or injured, it’s so frustrating!