Suffer-o-Rama Bike Trainer workout

Crappy weather forced me to ride on the trainer today. I can only really tolerate the trainer if I have Coach Troy and his Spinerval DVDs to motivate me. So, I did Suffer-o-Rama. Great stuff and my legs are toast now!

After the Spinerval was over, I put my front wheel on blocks and did a 10 minute climbing simulation in 53-15 gear, staying in Zone 3. It was hard, and I did not allow myself to slack off at all, remembering that if I was climbing a real hill, slacking off might cause me to tip over! Unacceptable!

I wanted to check my aero position on the tri bike with my new saddle (more about the new saddle coming in a future post)! So…I took some footage of me doing Coach Troy’s workout. Course, now that I see this, I really don’t know what to make of it. I think I look pretty good!

Here’s the video, below. The first 45 seconds was part of a 5 minute tempo effort, alternating standing and sitting. I like those because I feel they really develop hip power, and good transitions from sitting to standing and back to sitting.

Then I show the last bit of the workout, which consists of 5×45 seconds “all out”…I show one at 53-12 gear (grinding) and one at 53-15 gear (spinning). You can see in the video that I much prefer to grind than to spin. Grinding is easier and I can maintain a consistent effort level throughout the interval. With the spinning, I definitely slow down in the last 15 seconds. Something to work on!
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL2g10dafjE]

Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL2g10dafjE

If you can’t see the youtube video, here is a still image screen capture.