I've started training.

Equipment.   Last year in a fit of enthusiasm I bought an Elite Realaxiom turbo trainer. Having set it up and played with it for a while, my laptop then gave up the ghost and had to go for repair. For those who don't know, the Realaxiom needs to be controlled by a PC. By the time the laptop came back 3 weeks later, I'd lost interest amidst work pressures. It's perfect for my needs now, though. Set up in the garage with my old end to end bike installed, I've been able to do two training sessions so far.

I researched pretty thoroughly before settling on Realaxiom, and thought long and hard about Tacx. I didn't know then that Realaxiom doesn't integrate with Training Peaks, but for my purposes that hardly matters. There's a number of useful features it does have though. The best of these is the springy feet, which you set up according to your mass. This allows the bike to move slightly beneath you as you pedal, which makes it feel more like you are on a bike than the usual rigid and unforgiving turbo trainer experience.

The idea of the Realaxiom is that you play a DVD of an actual piece of road, which is filmed from the rider's point of view, and this advances at the speed you are 'riding' at with resistance changing automatically to match the gradient. This works well against the boredom factor! You can also set up programs and I've dabbled with Power vs Distance today. 10 miles at 125 watts actually, which is not that much but all I could manage.  18 miles covered so far.

Time to have a look through my cycling clothes. Hmmm, the curse of the conditioner has been visited on some of the lycra items, particularly shorts (which stretched and went baggy when tested) so they go in the bin with a batch of droopy socks. Baselayers are still OK but they've been christened 'wife-beaters' by the missus so it all needs an overhaul.

This is where it starts.

This morning, gazing at my expanding waistline and wondering why my only focus seems to be on work, I thought about the chill summer evening in 1998 when we arrived in John O'Groats to complete the End to End (E2E) for the first time. I can't remember who, but someone half joking said 'Let's ride back again.' It may have been me. This half-asked question has gone unanswered for long enough, and this year I'm going to complete the journey.

Most End to enders do the Land's End to John O'Groats trip. That direction takes advantage of the prevailing wind but does mean you have to spend the first few days in the tough hills of Cornwall, Devon and Somerset. Counter-intuitive maybe but it is far harder terrain for cycling than say, the Lakes or Highlands. Doing John O'Groats to Land's End you should have ridden fit by the time you get to the South West.

That's all theory today, as I'm 15st at a conservative estimate and haven't ridden a bike seriously since 2002. Last year I rode to a friend's house a mile away. Once. So it's going to take some will-power.

Sounds like a New Year's Resolution doesn't it? As in 'futile promise that I have no intention of keeping'. Anyway, watch this space and see how I get on.