April Fool's 2008

This is how the day started - in the garage on the trainer at 6:00 AM. Fun! The workout is called "Power Starts and Stomps", which means easy pedaling interspersed with short but extremely intense "bursts" of 12 - 20 seconds in a huge gear, aimed at improving neuromuscular power. Or something along those lines.

The power spikes don't even come close to what you'd see on a "real" road ride with sprints (mostly b/c you can't throw the bike around too much on the trainer), but that's not really the point, either. The point is building explosive power at slow speeds (from a stand-still, in fact), i.e. your "jump", not top-end finishing speed. By the time you begin to get up to sprinting speed, it is time to stop and recover for the next effort. Nonetheless, my legs felt the lingering effect of the efforts throughout the remainder of the day.



You download these workouts from Carmichael Training Systems as PodCasts for $10 each. I have about 6 or 7 total workouts, but many of the workout segments are the same. For example, the "10 minute warm-up" segment is the same on all the podcasts/workouts. And the songs on the workouts are TERRIBLE, meaning I get to hear the same horrible song segments on each separate workout. They really need to clean up their act over at Carmichael Training Systems. Hire someone who knows something about music. Or AT LEAST vary the song lists for each workout.

Things went progressively downhill after the early morning "ride". Interesting things happening at work, in a stressful, worrisome sort of way. I try to always look on the bright side, but the stress wears me down, and I didn't even have the energy/mindset to play April Fool's tricks on people. In that sense, it was a day gone to waste.

Tomorrow I pick up my new bike! Orbea Alma 29er, fully loaded. Can't wait...