The winter was just too long and too severe. In fact I cannot remember as harsh winter in all the years I've been training my bike. And that means a long time, a quarter of a century that is! Can you believe it? 25th anniversary of my first training ride will take place this Spring… Anyway, I don't remembet a winter in which I would be forced to go to work by bus from med December until now, it simply wasn't possible to commute by bike. Bljak, I hate Bus! Like every winter my base training was done on an indoor trainer in the basement of our home. The new thing for this year were the Spinning® classes, which really took me a lot more time than expected. Let me tell you that prepairing the Spinning® workouts & the music is not easy by any means. But, all in all, it was a great experience and a lot more FUN than riding myself in the basement I hope next year even more cyclists will join us…

Comparing to last year I have almost non-existent kilometers/miles on the road. Of course, the fact is that last year it was different as it was a RAAM season and I needed lots of kms to be prepared in June. This year the most important goals come at the end of the season, so I can afford a little more relaxed aproach. Nontheless, catching a pretty severe disease and  being forced to rest for 2 weeks on antibiotics makes me nervous every time it happens. And I must admit, it happens a lot more often than I would have liked. It must have something to do with my asthma, because I catch something like this 1-2 times a winter regularly. So, I should be used to it by now, but am not – still makes me wanna cry…

Well RAS EXTREME is still 2 months (and 4 days) away and I hope I can still prepare as well as I did last year. Optimistically speaking, if I stay away from illness that stopped me last year, I should be able to go around 2 hours quicker than in 2009. And that is my goal – to finish RAS inside 41 hours.

My winter »working environment« in the basement at home: