BBC News’s Carl Johnston is in training for the new racing season and aiming for a third category racing licence. Here, in the latest of an occasional series, he re-lives his latest training ride.

As I’m being half-wheeled up another long and painful drag by Warrington Road Club’s ‘half-wheeling champion’, the dozen or so riders behind are beginning to grumble.

It’s 10 o'clock on Sunday morning and we’re doing 18mph up a hill on push bikes. I’m on the front and, at this rate, I’m heading for an early bath if I’m lucky, and an early death if I’m not.

Half-wheeling, for the uninitiated, is an irritating tactic employed by riders determined to illustrate that they’re fitter than you are. When two riders are riding side by side, leading what’s known as ‘a double pace line’, their front wheels are supposed to be aligned. But when the half-wheeler (yes, that’s you Steve) pulls ahead of the rider next to him (and that’s me) you have to pedal harder to keep up.

And just as you get level... off he goes again, forcing you to chase him back. Your ego won’t allow you to do anything else – it’s your legs that don’t always agree. I’d have protested if I’d been able to speak but as my heart rate raced into the 170’s, I was struggling to even breathe. There’s nowhere to hide.

So I’m there, desperately trying to look as though I’m enjoying myself, and one of the gang starts to recite the lyrics of Frank Zappa’s ‘The Torture Never Stops’. This only provokes Warrington Road Club’s ‘half-wheeling champion’ who believes that if riders behind us are still able to talk, then we’re not going hard enough.

Of course, as any wheelsucker will tell you, the only reason they’re still chatting away back there is because they’re in our slipstream, protected from the brutal headwind that’s forced me down onto the drops.

I wouldn’t mind, but this is the so-called ‘Sunday run’ – a day of leisure for most ordinary cycling clubs when members take a gentle ride out into the countryside and pull over for a bacon butty and a mug of tea and then meander home with a warm glow and a sense of satisfaction.

But this is no ordinary cycling club.

I feel like my head’s going to explode and I’m going to internally combust. This club ‘run’ has turned into the Paris-Roubaix – my very own Sunday in Hell.

It feels almost like an out-of-body experience and I start hallucinating. I’m dreaming of recovery drinks like an alcoholic dreams of Scotch.

By the time I get home I’ve clocked up 80 miles in a little over four hours. It’s only one o’clock and my wife and children are surprised to see me. That’s because since I joined Warrington Road Club, I’m rarely getting home before dark. In fact, when I head out on a Sunday morning, my family regularly quip that they’ll see me next week.

Today my new British Cycling racing licence arrived in the post, providing a stark reminder that it’s only three weeks until my first race of the season – the Clayton Velo Spring Handicap near Clitheroe. It’ll be hard, but I’m anticipating that it will be a darn sight easier than the Sunday run.

Anyone else out there in full flight in readiness for the forthcoming season? Any more training-ride horror stories? And how do you deal with a half-wheeler!!!!?