“I stopped six times to take stuff off, put stuff back on again and curse loudly.” Welcome to in-between-season training, it sucks
Our very own Wallace is having some trouble with his cycling kit – yes, it’s that time of year again, Gromit…
As you will no doubt have realised, we have entered “wrong kit” season. Whatever kit you go out in, it’s the wrong kit.
To set the scene, I have just been for a training ride. I set off in bib shorts, knee warmers, shoe covers, base layer, bike jersey, arm warmers, gilet, gloves, and thermal cap. Within half an hour, I stopped to remove my shoe covers and knee warmers, and to swap my thermal cap for a cotton one.
Thirty minutes later, I stopped again to put my shoe covers back on, which I bitterly regretted removing, and to put a bike jacket on.
Fifteen minutes after that I stopped to take the rain jacket off again which was by now wetter on the inside than the outside, and also search fruitlessly in my jersey pocket for my track mitts to replace the gloves on my boiling hands.
Half an hour after that, the sun was back out with a vengeance and I stopped to remove my arm warmers, frantically trying to find room for them in my bulging back pockets (I also contemplated removing my shoe covers again but once bitten, twice shy). A few miles further on, I had cause to curse my decision to remove my arm and knee warmers as the sun went back in and an arctic wind blew up (I say “arctic”, I don’t know where it was blowing from, but I know where it was bloody blowing to).
All in all during a 50 mile ride I stopped six times to take stuff off, put stuff back on, take it off again etc., accompanied by loud cursing of an “FFS” nature as the weather went from sunny, to wet, to heatwave and then to positively Nordic…
No smart-ar*ed comments about taking kit on and off while still cycling please, the last time I rode with no hands, I was celebrating winning a sprint for a village sign and went straight into a hedge. Frankly, it’s no better when running, except that you tend to be stuck with your kit choices for the whole run.
With cycling, at least you can try and stuff your divested layers in your back pockets, even if it does make you look like you’re wearing a rubber ring. But with running, what you set off in is pretty much what you’ll come back in, unless you fancy carrying your discarded kit in your hands. The most you can usually hope to manage if your running jacket suddenly makes you feel like you’re a boil-in-the-bag fish is to tie it around your waist and spend the rest of the run hitching it back up as it disappears down your legs.
To be honest, I always struggle more to get running kit right. On numerous occasions my ears have informed me that a running cap rather than a woolly hat on a deceptively sunny but still cool spring day was a poor choice of headwear, and I recently decided to unfurl my naked knees for the first time in 2026 by bravely leaving my running tights behind.
Normally, my knees are not seen in public until I’ve been cycling in Majorca where I can at least try and take some of glare off their dazzling winter whiteness, but a warm morning led to a snap decision to go out in shorts. Naturally, the warmth didn’t last and my legs reacted to this sudden exposure to the elements by turning bright red, while other parts of the lower half of my body reacted by retreating up into the top half.
As a rule I’m unsympathetic when people tell me they are too cold (“run a bit faster then”) or too hot (“stop half-wheeling at the front then”) when training, but I make an exception for this time of year when not only get four seasons in one day, but you get them all twice, and not in necessarily in order. Frankly, there’s a fortune to be made by someone cleverer than me who can come up with kit which, instead of being good at either keeping you warm or cool, is just easy to put on and take off. And put back on. And take off again. And put back on…
Martyn Brunt
220's back-page columnist 
