Running Away With The Circus…

A Drop Bar Diaries dispatch from the Royal Albert Hall, where I spend a few days filming physical perfection… then go home and towel my face at 180 watts.

January had barely started and it immediately did that thing where it grabs you by the collar and says, “Right then mate, let’s see what you’re made of.”

Which is a bold move, given what I’m made of is mostly Gu dessert, good intentions, and a man in his mid-fifties who is still slightly surprised when he wakes up and his knees feel… present.

The festive period, against all odds, didn’t scupper my fitness. The mince pies came. The Quality Street came. The red wine definitely came. And yet I emerged without that familiar post-Christmas sensation of being sealed inside my own body.

I put that down to two things: I didn’t treat December like a moral test, and I now have an AI coach who, as you know if you’re familiar with these ramblings, speaks fluent restraint and refuses to panic when real life happens.

Which is fortunate, because the opening weeks of 2026 didn’t just happen.

They arrived wearing insect costumes and safety harnesses.

The glamour, the grind, and the great human pretence

This month started with a proper circus run. Not metaphorically. Literally.

I was down in London working with Cirque du Soleil at the Royal Albert Hall for OVO. Red carpet premiere. Camera set-ups. Quick turnaround content. One of those jobs where you begin the day feeling professional and end it feeling like a slug that has learned to drive.

The pace was… brisk. The kind of brisk where your brain opens 37 tabs and none of them are helpful.

In the middle of it all, I somehow slotted in a weekend away with my oldest school friends. Cheltenham. Big Regency house. Nige’s birthday meal. Wine. Karaoke. Darts. A basement games den that felt like a parallel dimension where time doesn’t exist and “recovery” is treated as a quaint rumour.

It was brilliant. 

It was also not what you’d call optimal athletic preparation.

Then it was straight back into the circus machine.

One day became sixteen hours. Quick turnaround editing, locked away in the Rausing Circle. After the show, after the final push, after that last little surge of adrenaline that convinces you you’re fine, I drove home on three hours’ sleep, which is always a thrilling experience if you enjoy hallucinating entire conversations with motorway signage.

By the time I got back, I felt like I’d been gently tumble dried.

And the thing is, that wasn’t even the most humbling part. The most humbling part was where I’d been tumble-dried.

Because while I’m there, at the Royal Albert Hall for heaven’s sake (pinch me), trying to look vaguely competent behind a camera and a portable edit suite after a weekend of friendship, karaoke and interesting Hotel Du Vin wall art, I’m surrounded by people who could warm up by doing things I’d need a signed waiver to attempt.

Why Cirque makes you feel like a weakly-designed human

Here’s the thing about working around Cirque performers: you spend the day filming people who look like they were built in a lab by scientists who got carried away.

They backflip because it’s Tuesday. They hang upside down like gravity is a suggestion. Their warm-up involves movements that most of us would reserve for a near-death experience.

You watch them and think: I’m also a cyclist. I, too, enjoy physical activity. Surely this shouldn’t be too hard to do?

Then you remember your most recent athletic achievement was standing up after an hour on Zwift without making a noise that would worry a cat. If I had a cat. Sometimes I’m glad I don’t, as my post-Zwift noises would have sent it straight out of the cat flap and into a witness protection programme.

Being around that level of physical perfection is humbling. Not unpleasant. Just… revealing.

They’re younger. Bendy. Athletic. Probably able to sleep eight hours without waking up to think about pensions, or needing a midnight toilet stop.

And weirdly, it didn’t make me feel defeated. It made me feel determined. Not to become them (I wish), but to become the version of me who can ride a long day and still enjoy the last hour. The version who doesn’t dread climbs. The one who finishes with a smile instead of negotiating with the laws of physics.

My AI coach assures me that version is available at 55. But it doesn’t come from hero sessions. It comes from doing the work in between all this chaos.

The training plan vs real life

The question I kept asking myself was simple: have I undone everything I built before Christmas?

And the answer, surprisingly, was no.

Fitness doesn’t evaporate because you have a late night and a long drive. It fades when you stop showing up completely. It disappears when you decide the plan only counts if conditions are perfect.

This year, my AI engineered plan is designed to survive imperfect weeks and adjust to my unpredictable diary.

So instead of trying to “make up” for travel and wine with something heroic, I did something deeply unglamorous. Something as far away from a red carpet premiere as possible. I simply got back on the bike and did the work I could do. Not the session I “should” do in an imaginary world where I sleep perfectly and never drive to London. The session that made sense for the body I had that day.

One tempo-lite session later, it was obvious: the engine is still there.

Heart rate, heat, and the great indoor swamp

If you read the last Drop Bar Diary you’ll know I’ve also added a new character to the story: a heart rate monitor. Which sounds like a sensible upgrade, but is in fact a portable anxiety generator that straps to your chest.

To recap, my first rides with it were a masterclass in over-attention. Watching the numbers rise, trying to lower them through breathing like I was defusing a bomb.

The reality is less dramatic and more useful. Turns out a big chunk of my ‘high heart rate’ indoors is heat., as my AI coach explained. (Side note: my AI coach probably needs a name.)

I’m a hot-running human. I would sweat in a fridge. I’ve dealt with hyperhidrosis my whole life. If there’s a world championship for “creating a puddle beneath your own bike,” I’m podium level.

And Zwift doesn’t give you a cooling wind. It gives you a screen, a Heads Up Display and a constant reminder that you’re still nowhere near the end of whatever interval you’re hoping will end. Soon.

So I’ve started taking cooling seriously. I moved the fan closer, aimed it at chest and neck, and suddenly it felt like a different sport. Less swamp. More control. I’m now flirting with the idea of a second fan for my face, partly for performance, partly because there are only so many times you can towel your eyes mid-interval without feeling like you’re running an amateur car wash.

The best bit is that heart rate, once you stop trying to win it, becomes genuinely useful. It tells you what you already feel: when you’re stable, when you’re drifting, and when heat is hijacking the effort. It doesn’t judge you. It just tells the truth.

Which is almost as annoying as my AI coach, who keeps asking if I’d like its recommendations for more optimal fan placement.

The circus trick I’m learning

If there’s one thing this early-January mayhem has reinforced, it’s this: the training isn’t the challenging part. The consistency is.

Anyone can do a big session when they’re fresh and motivated. The real trick is doing steady work when you’re busy, tired, mildly chaotic, and one email away from a breakdown.

That’s the trick I’m actually learning. Not just watts. Not just fitness. The ability to keep turning up.

Sometimes it’s Zone 2. Sometimes tempo. Sometimes “get on the bike, do something sensible, get off before you do anything daft.”

It’s boring. It’s also working.

Lincoln: the route is set

There’s now a real line on the horizon. The Lincoln sportive. End of May.

Alan and I had a brief moment of confusion where I thought it was 161 miles, which turned the whole thing into accidental ultra-endurance terror. But the good news is it’s actually 161 kilometres, which is still a proper ride, but no longer requires you to write your will.

So the objective is clear: build steadily, stay consistent, arrive in May feeling capable. Not flawless. Not superhuman. Just ready.

Berlin: the “taper” curveball

The weekend before Lincoln, I’m going to Berlin for a lads’ weekend.

Now, in most athletic programmes, the week before an event is called the taper. It’s where you reduce load, sharpen up, and arrive rested.

In my programme, it might be called: The Pre-Sportive Controlled Chaos Experiment.

We are planning a cycle tour around the city, which I would like to hereby officially classify as “training.” Not because it’s structured, but because it involves bikes, movement, and the possibility of mild suffering if Walters insists we “just pop over this bridge” for the tenth time, trying to relive his halcyon mountain-biking days.

Will it count? Yes. In the same way pork pie fuelling counts. Not scientifically, but spiritually.

Besides, if you can’t enjoy riding around Berlin in late May without worrying about your TSS, what are we even doing here?

Curtain call

So no, the busy start to the year hasn’t scuppered anything. If anything, it’s been the proof-of-concept test.

The plan didn’t collapse when work got heavy. It flexed. I still rode. I still banked the work. I still came out feeling like a cyclist, not a person who used to be one.

The route to Lincoln is set. The fans are multiplying. The sweat is… present. And while I’m in Berlin doing my “taper”, Cirque have a new show there too, which means I can potentially top off the weekend by watching even more bendy people doing impossible things with their bodies.

Either way, May is coming. The miles are quietly stacking. Winter is now just winter riding: steady sessions, sensible progressions, and a growing appreciation for the fact that discipline isn’t grim, it’s simply the habit of showing up.

See you on the road to Lincoln.

And if you spot me mid-ride wiping my face for the 400th time, just know this: I’m not struggling. I’m performing.