After a few years of cycling by the seat of my pants, I’ve decided to attack a set training plan.

I’m going with The Sufferfest’s Novice Road Plan. It’s a 10 week plan that will require four to six and a half hours training a week.

What’s my goal? Ideally I’d love to have a power meter to be able to measure output before and after the plan. As I don’t, it will purely be a measure of how strong I feel on the bike.

I do have a longer term goal.

There’s a fairly flat 13km time trial course I’ve tested myself on, and my best average speed on it is 35.2km/h. I had pushed myself a bit too hard to achieve that speed, and the result was a double calf tear, which kept me off two wheels for three months.

I want to complete the course with a 40km/h average, and to remain healthy in the process.

I have no idea if I can achieve that, but I’m going to try to achieve it this year.

Here we go …