This is just "a day in the life of" kind of training post. No big back story, just a typical training ride.
I woke up early this day - I was trying to reset my internal clock so that I'd get up early, like 5 AM or so, automatically. My goal here is to get used to the Bethel Spring Series wake up time so that it doesn't hit me hard when it's actually time to wake up. For this day I got up at 5:50 AM so not that early but better than the 2 AM wakeup from a few days ago.
I trudged down to the basement, changed into some bike gear, got on the bike, and started riding almost right away. I have a stash of energy bars next to the trainer. I ate one so this ride would be a $2 ride, give or take. Before I started I took a picture of the primitive "weather station" that sits next to the bike.
5:55 AM, about 66 deg F and 38% humidity.
This ride, immortalized on Strava here, wasn't particularly notable. I finished watching some pro race DVD, stuck in my own SprinterDellaCasa DVD that I made of my own clips, and hammered a bit harder than I expected.
I find that music works best to motivate me to ride hard. Watching movies or pro races isn't as interesting, especially if I know the race already. For example for all of the culture's faults in 2003, the 2003 Liege Bastogne Liege is a riveting race to watch. It looks so hard, everyone is at their max. Another good one is the Ghent that Nico Mattan won, another race that shows pretty much all the riders at their limit.
However when I watch them and I want to ride hard (and I have the luxury of not needing to keep an ear out for Junior), I'll put the ear buds on and listen to music. When I like the music it energizes me to the point that I have to make sure I back off a bit so I don't keep blowing up.
On longer trainer rides I'll actually ride with my eyes closed for reasonably long periods of time (a minute or two at a time, a peek, repeat for 30-60 minutes). The music and the feel of the pedals is enough stimulus for me.
If I need to keep an ear out for Junior I don't have this luxury, or at least I have to set the volume so low that the music loses its inspirational character. This is when I'd rather watch a pro race out loud (meaning I hear the announcers) or an actual movie.
The one exception is when I watch my own clips. I make them for a number of reasons but one is that it's something to motivate me when I'm on the trainer in the winter. I enjoy watching them and, since I get to chose the music, I enjoy the music. The clips feature many of the same songs that I listen to on the trainer, eyes closed, tranced away, and so the clip DVDs are nice in that sense.
On this morning I found one of my DVDs and popped that into the player, the first time I've watched it in this off season. This resulted in some big-for-me efforts, 222 watts for 10 minutes (about the length of the average clip), 202 watts for 20 minutes (a benchmark since that's one of the two ways I test my FTP). With a 220-230w FTP those efforts aren't bad at all.
I have three total DVDs, including mainly stuff from 2010 and 2011, as well as one low-res DVD with every clip from the beginning to the 2010 Red Trolley, my last low res clip, i.e. the last one I recorded on the Canon camcorder I carried around up to that point. I want to find the earlier DVD as I haven't watched it in a while.
About an hour and a half into the ride I heard a clunk from the floor upstairs - it was probably Junior either dropping something, falling over, or a cat jumping off of a couch or similar. Whatever it was I figured the Missus would need some help with all the morning stuff, breakfast for us, breakfast for Junior, getting ready for work, the kitties, all that jazz. I eased and climbed off the bike, shut off the various devices (TV, DVD player, fan), turned out the lights, and headed upstairs.
At about 7:40, 68 deg F and 46% humidity, +2 deg F and +8% respectively.
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