It’s been a while since I’ve posted about training. This is partly because I had a few weeks off after the Great North Run in September and gradually eased back into it after that. The other part is that I forgot. I’m now at full training capacity, which I’ll continue with every day barring illness, injury, prior commitment or really not wanting to.

I’ve been training indoors only because the weather is horrible, so I’ll write about that. I’ll write about outdoor training when I get a chance to do some.

Indoor training is on my rolling road, which looks like this.

It works how you’d expect; reverse up the ramps and push. There’s a sensor next to one of the rollers which measures rotations. That and a pulse monitor are linked to an app on my phone so I can monitor performance.

I do 3 hours a day on the trainer, in blocks of 1 hour. This seems like a lot, but a surprising amount of training is needed. Remember that I’m hauling along my own considerable weight plus the chair (which is only about 7-7KG) with such fundamental forces to fight as as gravity, friction and inconvenient cambers.

Last year I was aiming to increase my stamina. I’m happy now with my level of stamina and general fitness, so this year I’m working on speed. During each hour I try to maintain an average speed of around 3mph. This doesn’t sound much but my trainer is modified (heavy weights that clamp around the rollers) to simulate pushing up a moderately steep hill. Maintaining 3mph for an hour under those conditions is hard work, but I’m planning on getting it up to 3.5 by the late spring.

According to the app, that level of activity burns about 550-650 calories in an hour, depending on how much I’m going for it. I’m not entirely sure how much I can trust the app, but that seems in line with figures I’ve seen elsewhere.

So that’s my main training routine while the weather is bad. I’m training to go up hills at slightly less than walking speed!

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