Dancing on ice....

There's been no further snow today but the snow is wtill think in places and most of the pavements are now ice-runs. I am due to do a 4 mile fartlek session tonight. This concentrates on short bursts of speed then recovery. How the 4 miles is split is up to me, basically pick a landmark and run for it then recovery jog. After putting the kids to bed I look outside and immediately see that running tonight especially a speed session is a recipe for a broken ankle or at the very least a sore bum. I need to get some sort of training in as since the Sunday 10 miler I have had a roast dinner plus too much wine and a Chinese as a reward for all my hard training and dstrict eating. So it's up to the shed for a 35 minute fartlek session on the bike. I have my padded pants, water, phone and TV remote - I'm ready to train. The session is similar to the running but more intense bursts of energy. Over the 35 minute session there's a couple of minutes warm up, then 2 minutes as fast as I can, then 1.30 minutes normal cycling, 30 seconds intense and so on. Basically I make it up as I go along, the longest fast sessions being 3 minutes and the longest recovery 2 minutes. It is surprising how intense this session is. After 35 minutes I am knackered and the shed windows have steamed up. I dismount and step into the garden. It's looking very scenic, lots of undisturbed snow and then a plethora of foot-prints, paw-prints, snowmen, hand-prints and snow sculptures. For some reason George and his little friend only bothered playing in the bottom half of the garden, Back into the house for a shower, steamed salmon and blogging.