My bike has been a right pain in the backside since I started using it for fitness this year. I decided that it was silly driving to the gym and the pool, especially since the first part of the gym session is a warm-up on the stationary bike. So, out came the bike and I have been aiming to do about 25 miles (about 2 hours) per week as additional cardio exercise. At this time of the year, that’s been hard to achieve with bad weather causing me to jump in the car anyway on quite a few days.

What I didn’t allow for is the bike playing up. It has been back to the bike shop twice for the gears to be reset, and today when I was nearly home from an 8 mile trip into town and back (with Tiff and Ali) I got a flat. So they went on without me and I walked the last half mile home with my bike.

Not only that, but I can’t find a spanner that fits the wheel nuts – so I’m taking the whole bike back to the bike shop again, this time for a measly puncture.

I’ll have to get fit enough to be able to do enough running to burn up the calories, at least with running you only have your own body to play you up!