Who Needs the Alps?

My first proper time spent in UCC was over the past two days. It's a lovely college and the writing course that I was at proved to be excellent: well taught; interesting content; and demonstrating the use of use : and ;.

What I had noticed before was the amount of hills around the city. However, walking around these isn't so bad, you only really notice them on a bike. And boy are they noticeable. Cycling along, nice and easy (well, giving it loads to prove to the drivers beside you that cycling is clearly a superior form of transportation), then bam, you're at the bottom of a cliff.

Now I know that I'm not the best cyclist, indeed, far from it. I also know that I'm not the best hill climber for my performance bracket. However, the severity of the climbs inside the city (!!) are something else. I wasn't used to that kind of thing at all in Dublin.

However, it does lend itself to some interesting speculation on training. Getting myself on a nice fixie, such as the Felt Dispatch which I have my eye on, would really push me to build a lot of fitness in this area.

This will of course not be happening until I get back from Germany. Word on the street is that I'll be leaving before two weeks in January are up, and gone for a good eight or nine months. That said, some alpine training, in an area like Schloss Ringberg below, wouldn't go amiss :D

Unfortunately, I'll probably be taking the Christmas and a lot of time in January off due to either having my bike in Cork, or, much more drastically, having given my rifles back to the club :( One of the really annoying things about this is that there are InterShoot qualifications going on as well. Based on how things were going up until last week I may actually have had some sort of a chance to at least get within spitting distance of the 573 required, which would be the main thing.

So, the plan has not been forgotten, merely delayed. Keep reading for more concrete plans, though I wouldn't expect them to materialise for some time yet. I'll keep having a look around for some decent training plans online and see what I can find. I'll share too, don't worry!