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<\/p>\nI\u2019ve decided to review my own 2025 season earlier than usual this year, mainly to put it out of its misery. It\u2019s a B minus at best. A \u201cNeeds work\u201d, or a \u201cMichael is easily distracted and this year completely failed to make the most of his admittedly limited abilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
My target-setting was non-existent. The last few years have seen the careful selection of things like championship races which I obviously wasn\u2019t going to win, but which at least provided a bit of structure for the mediocrity and, when the day arrived, a reminder not to be too ambitious. This year I set out to \u201cenjoy a few local races\u201d, and that\u2019s not a target, it\u2019s just an excuse for a few beers afterwards.<\/p>\n
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Multiple national road champion on the bike and award-winning author Michael Hutchinson writes for Cycling Weekly every week.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n As if to prove the importance of target setting to a successful season, my training matched the targeting perfectly. Other than one or two social rides<\/a>, I didn’t ride for longer than 90 minutes between December and July. I managed better than that the year I broke my hip, and indeed better than that while I still had a broken hip and lived in fear of getting a puncture because while I could ride a bike I couldn\u2019t stand up unsupported.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n I keep setting out on what were intended to be two-hour rides<\/a>, planned as a stepping stone to some three-hour rides, and coming home after an hour and a bit. I\u2019m in a destructive cycle where I don\u2019t feel like I\u2019m doing enough riding, so to make up for it I ride harder. That means there\u2019s less of a straightforward out-in-the-countryside pleasure in it, so I do less again.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t do it hard enough to compensate, by the way, just hard enough to put myself off the whole idea and keep the rides short. You\u2019ve heard of \u201cjunk miles<\/a>?\u201d as a description of distance covered to no great training purpose? Well, I\u2019ve invented \u201cjunk intensity\u201d.<\/p>\n I was actually at my fittest at the end of February, because I spent most of the winter just riding e-races against random fields of strangers from all over the world. The races were short, and, more often than not, very hard indeed. Then, when spring arrived, I started proper training, which ended up being half-hearted rides focussed mainly on swerving round potholes.<\/p>\n I\u2019m still not nearly as bad as I deserve to be. This has been the story of my cycling life \u2013 I\u2019ve complained for years that I never get as much benefit from training as I feel I should \u2013 long months of carefully structured work produce gains much smaller than I\u2019ve seen in others, even others that I\u2019ve coached.<\/p>\n But I\u2019ve always been less grateful for the opposite effect, which is that when I don\u2019t bother training I never fall as far as I should. Last year I did some real training, and I could manage a very credible 405 watts for twenty minutes. This year I\u2019ve trained like a moron and I can still do 395.<\/p>\n You might feel like this is living the dream \u2013 and to some extent it is. But it\u2019s one of the reasons it\u2019s so hard to motivate myself. I don\u2019t get much from training that I don\u2019t already have. I imagine being incredibly rich has a similar effect on your work ethic, but I also reckon being a billionaire would have compensations that comfortably eclipse being able to beat a Belgian called something like ZZZTopMerckx to the top of an imaginary mountain on Zwift<\/a>.<\/p>\n In a way the answer is obvious \u2013 give up on training and just go for a ride. In many ways that\u2019s the purpose of my earlier than usual season review. It\u2019s a respectable way to bin the whole thing and just have fun.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n Of course, that is probably the moment that I\u2019ll suddenly be inspired to do some long rides and finally get some form together. ZZZTopMerckx, you\u2019ve been warned. I\u2019m coming for you.<\/p>\n
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