Nice Spin Session

The days are going by fairly quickly this week. Last week they seemed to fly by as well because I was trying to get everyone setup for their midyear reviews, do the 1:1 and push the review forward to the next stage, then the holding tank in our system until we need to make additional changes or go over them during our year-end.

Cycling

Last night I really wanted to do something different for my trainer spin. I enjoy my 3D rides a lot and the rides in the other virtual software are great as well. The problem is that they each have their own quirks or challenges. Once you identify them they are in the back of your mind before and during the spin which is counter productive.

So to mix it up a bit I pulled out my Trainer Road software, blew the dust off of it and loaded it up on the iPad. I purchased it with the intention and excitement of using it often. It is data rich which I like and works great with my trainer. Unfortunately the last and only time I used the software was in December, Christmas Eve if I remember correctly.

Why you ask? Mostly because you can't really go in and spin. I mean you can, sorta but the software is designed to have you do a training session for weeks to months at a time. Then depending on the amount of time you have available it could be anywhere from 30 minutes all the way up to 3+ hour sessions! The average seems to be 75 minutes.

Last night I dove into one of the 75 minute sessions they revert to as a Base 1 session. These are 3 days per week for a month I believe. The session has instructions in it as well that tell you when to get up out of the saddle and do a sprint or five. When to increase or decrease your cadence and so on.

75 Minutes Later

All said and done it was a really good session and it did not get boring like I had worried it might. I did not do the session perfectly because it was my first time doing this one. There are a few things you have to do as I mentioned, things like sprints and other things to challenge your endurance by spinning fast for 5 to 10 minutes.

Those sound a lot easier than they actually are. When you have the trainer helping you it's easier to keep your cadence a little closer to where it should be. When it tells you to spend up to five or 10% more it becomes difficult to maintain that for some reason. Of course that is the whole point of it to get you used to doing that and building muscle memory for future rides.

There is another thing that it teaches you in the session as far as your peddle strokes. It's something I had never read or heard of before so it was really cool to try. Basically you attempt to push your toes through the front of your shoes as you are moving towards the front of the stroke when you are coming towards the back of the stroke you do the opposite and pull your heels towards the back of the shoe as though you are trying to push through them on that end.

It sounds fairly easy, in practice it's actually fairly difficult to do. That said; difficult or not, I'm going to continue to practice it as I could tell that I really increased my watts by doing so with little to no additional effort, possibly less at times otherwise I would feel as though I needed to click to a harder gear to continue to keep my cadence where I wanted it.

Itsy Bitsy Spider? Nope, Big Ass Spider!

I have to mention that while on the trainer last night I had the shxt scared out of me! I looked up while getting a drink, about 48 minutes in and what is coming down a few feet in front of me? I big ass spider! What's more is that I have a very hard blowing fan that is aiming at me while on the trainer so as the spider would descend, the fan would blow it closer to me and my face! What am I going to do? I can't stop this session that I am on to catch the thing and let it go outside as usual?

So I managed to grab the web, with the spider about a foot or so below where my hand was, and sort of did a twirling whipping motion to fling it to the floor and out of my face. This worked great, the only problem now - where the hell is the spider?

Looks like, as planned, I will need to spray the house again this weekend and hope that I don't have anymore run-ins with them while on the bike. That was the worse! The fan blowing the thing at my face, back and forth. Me being clipped into my pedals and not really being able to stop and if so, pause, which would only mess up the cadence values in the final data for no good reason.

Well it's a problem that is now behind me. I hope that I don't have to deal with it again anytime soon! I am not sure what kind of spider it was other than a big one. That must be a type of spider right? Of course those in other countries or areas that have actual 'big spiders' would be laughing your ass off at what I considered a big one. It's all good, I can take it!

Okay I'm Done

That will do it for this day, Wednesday. Tomorrow is our Friday because we are actually off on Friday this week to have a little extra time to hang out and I wanted to possibly go down and visit my mom since Sunday is mothers day and more importantly because I have not been down there in something like 1.5 to 2 months and that is just crap!

The weather is supposed to be shxtty unfortunately and I had hoped to put some solid miles in on the bike. Looks like I may have to do so inside on the trainer, possibly doing another session like I did last night if the weather does not improve. Windy and colder today was the only thing that caught my eye on the forecast. Guess we will see how it goes and go from there.

I also planned to mow the lawn, front and back because I put it off last weekend, big mistake! This week with all the rain and the guys coming out to feed the lawn it was idea to have a nice cut lawn to enjoy all of these things. It is already super long so if the weather is crummy it will only continue to get longer until I'm able to do it. Oh well, that happens - what'cha going to do?!

Photo: Photo outside of the cafe at work. It's tough to tell in the photo how hard it's actually raining out there. Even more crazy, it soon started to rain even heavier!