On the turbo trainer

Another rainy day encountered. When the alarm clock rang at a half past four, I hit the snooze button and went back to sleep but thought that I have yet to do an early morning ride this week. A peek from my room window revealed clouds in a reddish sky but no rain. I could hear the fallen dry leaves swooshing down the hill and the rustling of trees. In the backyard joey and jade were fast asleep. Joey reared up his head when a branch fell and then went back to sleep when he did not see anybody to bark at. Jade was her usual customary self, curled in the corner behind the granite pot, her thick white tail showing from where I looked. I shook off the sleep cobwebs and went out to sort the bike out and made sure I have my trusty bike essentials before heading to the kitchen for a Muesli bar and a glass of soy milk.

When I got out, it had started to rain. I was contemplating riding as it wasn't too bad but thought the better of it. As I set waiting for the rain to stop, it did the contrary. It got heavier and heavier and I gave up, went upstairs and changed. Went to work as I couldn't possibly go back to sleep now. Did some paperwork  and did some emails before doing a round to make sure all was well and quiet on the patch.

I decided to do some work on the turbo trainer. The gym was quiet and the cyclo trainers were not occupied. I have not done very much work on these trainers but thought something is better than nothing. Did a 7 minute warmup to see how my leg muscles were. When they were well warmed up, I decided to do the random hill program with 6 hills in a 2 hour workout at level 9-10. I thought I did achieve some aerobic base training during the workout and the hills provided some anaerobic training and I worked up a good sweat.

I thought it would be difficult to stay focused but I was pleasantly surprised to note that it wasn't as tiresome as I had envisaged. The gym was putting in some pulsating R & B and I spent the time watching CNN. There was no sound and I had to contend with the newsline at the bottom of the screen which compelled me to concentrate.

I did 60.4 km in 2 hours with average watt output of 101 watts; average RPM of 79; 900 calories burnt and an average speed of 31.1 km/hour. This was way faster than my usual bike rides on the road and I think it is probably a combination of factors: I had no danger elements of road riding to contend with and can pedal aggressively without fear of crashing. The other possibility is that its just darn inaccurate.