I did intervals this afternoon on the trainer. I mean, I bought the darn thing for a reason! Unfortunately the irony of driving somewhere to ride is just too much. Especially when the interval location is about 10 miles from the house. I would ride out and back but I don't want to have to worry about saving energy for the return trip.
I created an interval program for the Polar CS600. I set the program up last night to have a 15 minute warmup, 2 minute 130% threshold power, 3 minute recovery and a 15 minute cool-down. The threshold power and recovery steps were repeated 6 times. I quickly found that I could hold that power work for 1:15, not a full 2 minutes so I adjusted the interval down to 1:15 instead. I'll likely leave it there for a couple weeks and increase the duration after Phoenix.
The one bad thing about trainers is that you can't stand up and hammer the crap out of the interval since the bike will not rock back and forth. Everything must be done while seated instead which is a bit of a pain. Heck, just being on the trainer is a pain since it's much harder to ride than if I were on the road instead. ...ya know, the whole resistance thing. At least the Trackstand Ultra has a centrifugal force clutch design so pedaling is nice and smooth. Plus, when if I have to stop pedaling, when I start again, the clutch will have been just free-spinning so when I get back on power, it's nice and gradual.
Saturdays are always either an endurance day or a climbing day. During the week I think I'm going to utilize the trainer more. Mainly because with school, it cuts down on wasted driving time and gas. I think I'll be able to get higher quality training sessions in. Anyway, one day a week will be used for intervals (to work my anaerobic threshold), another for lactate threshold, and the third for sprints.
Oh, I had to scratch off a pair of jeans the other day. I can no longer wear them because my thighs have gotten too big to fit. When in full stride there's only about an inch of material behind my upper leg and I look like I'm wearing tights. Don always kids about my having to haul around 50 lb. (per leg) tree trunks. Most cyclists seem to have skinny legs. It has to be genetic or something, I don't know. What I do wonder is if I had started cycling seriously at a young age, might I have been a world famous cycling sprinter like Tom Boonen or something? Oh well, one can only dream! =)
1 comment:
ok, only a guy could get away with the jeans comment...girls just can't admit that their thighs are actually getting bigger with exercise! :-)
Trainer workouts are good, but I'm SOOOOO sick of my trainer after the winter we've had. You're a lucky fella to live in sunny CA!
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