Torture?

Friday I was finally back on the Road of Iron. Not sure what exactly is wrong. Coach Steve posited that I’d use a lot of energy recovering from my wounds (to recap: a lot of skin rubbed off, still under Compeed bandages; bruises up and down my left side, metastasized to my right!). Considering that I’m not working out, it seems odd that I’m so tired all the time.

Anyway.

Friday evening, watching SportsCentre and That’s Hockey on the Sports Network, I mounted my bike on the trainer, and did what Coach Steve actually prescribed for Thursday. (Friday was to be a swim day, but still missing a few square inches of skin, I don’t want to expose myself to highly chlorinated water!) That is, I did an hour—yes, a full, honest hour—on the trainer, and did the six 30-s one-leg drills (that is, twelve drills altogether).

One of my favourite magazines, Cycling Plus asked if what they call turbo trainers were “instruments of turture”. They decided no, of course; but there’s something weirdly enervating about riding on a trainer.

Do I have a good trainer? I have the cheapest trainer I could buy from Performance Bicycle. It seems to work fine, though the controller is pretty basic.

Do I have the right technique? I had the trainer at its lowest level, which I still find harder than riding on a windless flat road, and I was in the big ring. I think I may not have been spinning enough; after the hour, my legs were sore, but I rarely got my heart rate above 100.

Of course, I’m delaying now. We have wind warnings (gusts up to 100 km/h!), the roads are wet and covered with leaves, and it’s chilly (about 6°C). A good day to use the trainer. And if I°m not on the trainer really, really soon, I won°t get the two hours of base pace done before I can get to the gym before it closes at 18:00. Sigh.

Update: Well, I didn’t make it. I managed 40 min on the trainer, and that was all. No energy, no mental toughness—I admit it. Did some errands, and I’m irritable, my throat is tight—oh, oh, that damned virus again.

And the weather is nowhere near as awful as Environment Canada forecast. The wind’s not bad at all. The Weather Channel is forecasting a strong breeze from the west tomorrow morning—but nowhere near the storm EC was warning us of.