Well today I spent some time on the trainer. Yesterday was about 30min. followed by 45 minutes of snow biking into work and 45 minutes home. Today I woke up to watch the Inauguration of our 44th president of the United States. Anyone else see the look on GW's face? Didn't look too happy. Oh well. I'm not crying seeing him leave.
So I decided to eat some oatmeal and hop on the trainer after soaking up some internet and 'tube. I spent about an hour on that monster and did some intervals. My favorites recently have been 2min on, 1min rest, 3min on, 1min rest, 4min on, 1min rest, 3min on, then cool back off for around 20-30 minutes. Over this course I watched Obama get sworn in, a lovely poem read, and his speach. All good stuff.
Ate lunch and got the bike ready to go to the Physical Therapist. He has been hashing out my lower back/medial glute issues I've been having. So we get the bike on their and plugged up to realize he forgot a cadence magnet. Not being the total bike geek I am, No I do not ride with a bike computer. End of story. Drove to work and picked one up and some gels to prepare for the pain to come.
He had an incoming patient at 2:30pm so I got to "play" on the trainer while I waited. Looking through the list being the genius I am I decide on the Alpe d'Huez file. Terrible idea. While fun, I had already put in an hour of work, and done about 25 minutes of warm up before tackling the Alpe. The first 5.5 miles of the program is flat, then you take a sharp left corner into the heavens. You go from 0% grade to 10.5% within about 1/4 mile. My heart rate pegs, and I am grinding (and I mean grinding) in my 39/23. Damn myself. Why don't I ride a 13-26t cassette on my trainer wheel.
After some damage control and suffering things start to level out a little. This holds for about .5-.7 miles to around 7 percent. Then things pitch back up into the stratosphere. Around 12% for about a mile. They drop back down to around 9 %. I hit the 9.5 mile mark. I am 20oz. of water in the hole, 2 Powergels (all this on the trainer you say? Just try it.) and I am gassing. I decide at the next major pitch up I am going to call it. at around mile 10.1 I am thrown into the stratosphere. The program ramps up to 13% and climbing and I give out. Done.
All in all not a bad effort. As I said before I don't use a computer or Power meter, but I do occasionally check out others efforts they post in their blogs. I wound out at 45 minutes. Average speed of around 13mph I think (I was a little dazed) Average RPM was 82, and average power output was 240watts for the effort. I refused the heart rate monitor due to the fact that it scares me to know how high it gets sometimes. It doesn't tell me jack other than confirming that I am pegged. And back off up a 12% gradient while riding a 39-23 equals more grindage of the 45rpm variety as opposed to the 55rpm I was rocking.
It was (and I can't believe I am saying this) a really fun day on the trainer. Now the Short Cake is coming home and I am taking her out to dinner. We are going to eat some pasta at the Brown Bottle. And she is going to have a glass of wine. She is handling a huge insurance roll over at her business and is feeling her first in depth carreer related stress. I mean big stress and exhaustion. She deserves a treat. Then a little pant shopping for Megan and Nabil's wedding. Can you say non pleated pants. I can "cause that's what I have been rockin' and that is apparently a huge fashion no-no.
Peace out. Alpe d'Huez I'll be back. Maybe someday for a taste of the real thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment