Sustaining the pace

Gerona, ESP
Thursday, August 17, 2006

You know how sometimes you just don’t feel like going outside to ride? You just want to stay home and ride the trainer? Perhaps you don’t, but it happens to me all the time… I’ve actually come to realize that most people don’t like to ride the trainer, I can’t imagine why not- but they look at me like I’m genuinely out of my mind. It kind of stimulates my mind or leaves me with more options… or something. I like to feel like I don’t have to ride at 8:00am or 1:00pm or whatever. If I wanna wait until 4:00pm to do my 5 hour ride I can, on the trainer! Sure it’s a bit absurd, but don’t put it out of proportion. Riding’s riding right? Whether it’s on the trainer or out in the middle of nowhere on some country road deep in the heart of Spain, the same rules apply. I wonder if 180 watts on the trainer is the same as 180 watts on fluctuating terrain. It must be, you just can’t put out the same max power on the trainer because you don’t have as much leverage… or something like that.
Anyway, I put off riding until 3:30pm today, so I rode the trainer for 4.5 hours. Average watts were somewhere in the range of 185. I read a good deal of “the king of torts” by John Grisham. It’s actually best to switch between reading and listening to music every hour. It’s also key to stand every five minutes or so.