Now the weather’s getting better, snowdrops and crocuses are beginning to appear and the frost has gone (for now!), I have decided that it’s time to get back out cycling regularly.

I’ve only been out a couple of times in the last few months and then only for a mile or two at a time. I feel it too. After a ten mile cycle today, my legs are like jelly and my bum is aching. At my age it is telling how much fitness gets lost in a few weeks. I had forgotton what it was like turning around and heading back into a head wind and the burning thigh muscles on an incline which is really too shallow to be considered a hill.

I really need to be doing this distance every couple of days. Especially as I intend to cycle to Edinburgh and back next month. Even just a couple of years ago I could have probably done a cycle like that after a day or two back on the bike following a break. Nowadays I’m going to have to build up gradually over weeks rather than days.