Training?

I haven't been riding outside much. I think the last time I rode any significant amount outside was around Christmas. This is because of two things, mostly. 1) I was bike-less for a while. Working bike-less, at least. Actually I had one working bike, but it's my nice one. I'm not going to ride it out in the land of salt and potholes. 2) The weather has been miserable. I don't mind cold, but the snow (and snow and snow and snow) sucks the fun out of life (I'm not a skier). So I've been walking. That's exercise. Kind of.

I'm not a high performing cyclist. I'm not super fit. What little fitness I do have, I'd like to hang onto during this off season. Maybe I'll want to put a little more effort into 'racing' this year. Or maybe I just want to be able to enjoy riding when the weather gets nice. So I put my one working bike on the trainer, parked in front of a computer stocked with guilty-pleasure TV and bike training videos. I even have a heart rate monitor, so I can make sure my heart's working hard enough.


Fast forward to this week. No snow and a (mostly) new bike* to try out. I did some commuting and errand running. I got my ass handed to me- riding around town. Depressing. I can say that despite how much time I've spent riding inside, it's not really helping. It's not hurting. But I'm not going to get race ready by riding in place. I can try to push myself while watching "Trainright Climbing", but riding up a real hill is more difficult than I could ever motivate myself to spin on the trainer. I'm out of shape.

Thankfully the way to get not out of shape is ride a bike outside. The 10 day forecast only has a couple days of flurries, and lots of days in the upper 30s. I'll take it.




*I'm going to write about it after I ride it a bit longer, so I can give a well thought out review about it.