Mental Dialog

I truly love the crazy conversations I have in my head while I'm working out hard. Fun workouts, you laugh, you smile, you might sing along with the music. But these hard workouts, like the one we had on the Super6 schedule today? The conversations that go on in my head between myself and, well, myself, are hilarious (in retrospect, of course).

Today was TESTING DAY!!!!! Which means, you dial into that perfect pace that takes you RIGHT to the edge and you hold it for what feels like an eternity, not letting go, not even for a second. It's only for 20 minutes, but it feels like forever. I've done this workout, Spinervals 27.0: Threshold Test and Sufferfest (I know, seriously, how do they name these??? Gotta love it!), multiple times, but the dialog is the same every time. EVERY time. Here's how it generally goes:

• Troy tells us how it's generally going to go, with lots of warnings about how much we are going to suffer, and how good it is for us. "Yes! Suffer! Let's get it started man!!!! I wonder what I can average this time? 10W more than last test? 15? 20?!?! Yes, twenty. I'm shooting for 20W more than last time!!!!" Mind you, this goal is based on no realistic data, but rather on my not quite yet awake, but over-exuberant brain that thinks I'm much more ass kicking than my body can substantiate, but, whatever. We go with it.
• Troy starts the warm up, and WOW, I'm pushing the serious watts during those 30s on segments (we always warm up with 30s on / 30s off, three times). "Hmmmm, maybe I should shoot for 30W higher? I am clearly on fire today. Look at me and my bad self!" I am still not yet fully awake, and full of delusions of grandeur. 
• We then have an extended warm-up for this one, because we need to "take a little snap out of our legs" to make it a true 40k TT effort simulation. "HA! Take the snap out of my legs. You go ahead and try! These legs are bands of steel...."  I continue to push some serious wattage during the extended warm-up, easy to do, because the intervals are short, but then.... I'm feeling the snap starting to leave those bands of steel, and as my brain starts to wake up, reality begins to creep in. "Perhaps it would be more prudent to think about 10-15W higher than last test?" Ya think, Little Miss Bad Ass? 
• Then we start. 20 minutes. 20 minutes hard, and you have to start out at a level you can sustain for the full 20 minutes, but NO LONGER. Thankfully, I'm actually getting pretty good at gauging my effort (once I'm awake and thinking straight, that is). I pick a solid gear, hit a cadence of 88, and start to push. 
• Troy announces that we are 5 minutes in. By now, there is a huge puddle on the floor under my bike and sweat is pouring off my hair, face, and shoulders at an alarming rate. "Ok, ok. 5 minutes in. That's ok. I'm good. Just 3 more of that. I can do 3 more of that. I think. I'm pretty sure. Maybe." A little self-doubt here is good, it means I'm pushing it hard enough that I'm not quite sure I can hold on, but I *think* I can. Perfect. He then announces that Luther is putting out something absurd like 375W. "Wow, that is SERIOUS power, man! Impressive!!!! Way to go Luther!!!!"
• We get to the 10 minute mark. Half way there. I've now lost half my body weight in sweat, all my towels are soaked through, and I'm getting a tad grumpy. "Over the hump. Just 10 more minutes. Wait, 10 more minutes???? Shit. This hurts. Wait, 10 more? I think he's high. He is barely looking at that stupid stopwatch of his - I think he's wrong." "Well, crap. No, my computer says the same thing. Ok, 10 more minutes. Just keep pedaling, stare at cadence and HOLD IT." "STOP looking at the timer, it is NOT moving slower than real time, just STOP LOOKING AT IT!" We hear that Luther is still holding onto obscene wattage, and I swear he's not even sweating."Good job Luther, nice work. Wow."
• 5 minutes left. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Luther is a freaking stud. I don't give a CRAP about Luther! Shut UP already!!!!!! Actually, seriously, just stop talking Troy. You are killing me. I KNOW I'm suffering, I think I'm sweating blood at this point!!!! Stop TELLING me how good this is for me." "You know what? I'm holding this just fine, and I'm SURE I can keep it up for 5 more minutes. So it's just fine if I stop right now and use these numbers!!!! Right? That would be totally legit. Totally! Or, even if I stop now, my average will still be higher than last time, so that's good. Yes, this is good enough. I think I will stop right now and feel just fine about that decision." "Shut up and pedal, woman. You have 5 minutes left, you are going to not only hold this, but you are going to kick it up a notch. GO!!!!"
• I see my average wattage number go up by 1. This makes me very, very happy. Or as happy as one can be sweating blood with 4 more minutes to go. I am determined to eek out one more watt, so I increase my cadence a little. This hurts. Badly. "You IDIOT!!!! What were you thinking???? Now you have to hold THIS for 4 more minutes!!!!!!" "Oh, only 4 more minutes? That's easy. 1 minute. Four times. I so got this. Damn. This hurts." 
• "Troy, why aren't you talking? Tell me how good this is for me, dammit!!!!!" "Ah, there you are. Thank you. Yes, yes I am suffering and I can suffer for another 2 minutes, just another 2 minutes. I can. I can. Hold the hell on, hold on!!!" 
• My average speed goes up. WOOT! And there is my additional watt! ONE MORE MINUTE!!!! "..............." (pure silence, as now I'm in robo-mode and there are no thoughts. Just staring at my computer, staring at my cadence, holding on for dear life, holding on by a thread, a tiny, tiny thread) 
• "Three, two, oooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeeee!" and it's over. Just like that. I see my numbers and smile. While I am not QUITE as bad ass as my half awake brain imagines me to be, I ain't half bad. 

Super 6: Phase III

Spinervals 39.0: Aerobic Base at 10,000 ft

39.0 Aerobic Base at 10,000ft

You know you are starting to get a bit hardcore when you know the Spinervals titles no longer only by name, but by number. 39.0 is becoming one of my all time favorites. It's an aerobic base builder (ABB) workout, which as a rule, can tend to be a bit boring because you keep your effort at an aerobic level. You don't have the excitement of wondering if you are going to puke or faint from the all-out efforts present in many of the other Spinervals workouts. You aren't deriving pleasure thinking about ways to torture Troy for inflicting whatever pain he's currently inflicting on you, or hurling curse words at him between gasps of breath. It's just .... aerobic riding. Well alrighty then. Yawn.

But this one is really, really fun, and the time somehow FLIES by. I think that's the case because it's fundamentally centered around a 30 minute pyramid set, that somehow feels like it's 5 minutes long. You work your way up the pyramid (1m, 2m, 3m, 4m, 5m) with 30s rests in between, then work your way back down, changing gears/cadence with each step to mix things up a bit. In no time you are on that 5m rep, then you are on the down swing. It really just flies by. By the time that wraps up, you are under the hour mark, and well, that means you are home free and the remaining sets go by lickity split.

The athletes and general chatter in this one are interesting and different as well, as it's located in Leadville, CO, home of the Leadville 100 mountain bike and ultra running races. These people are crazy!!!!!

Definitely a winner and a nice length at 1:25 - over that hour mark, but doable on a weekday before work. Check it out, I think you will like it!

The HardCore 100: Spinervals 26.0

"How can you ride your bike on the trainer for so long and not get bored?" 

I get that question a lot. Hell, I think when I first starting riding I *asked* that question a lot. And even after I was moderately experienced, I still thought this workout, a 5.5 HOUR trainer workout, was insane. INSANE. Seriously, who would do this, voluntarily???? Ok, ok. If you are Ironman training and you live in Siberia, I get the need. But for the rest of us? No way. I've owned it for years, because, well, I love everything Troy puts out and I like to have a varied collection of workouts. While during the intro and throughout the workout, he claims that we HAVE TO FINISH this workout if we start it. Well, I've done disc 1 (it's a 3 disc set) many, many times and it's a fantastic workout on it's own, and to date, Troy hasn't showed up at my house to take the workout back from me for disobeying the rules. :) So while I've owned this for years, I've never done it in it's entirety and never had plans to. Because, that's crazy talk.

Until this year's December Challenge that is. As usual, the Challenge ends on New Year's Day with, yup, the HardCore 100. I'd been off my bike from any serious training for quite a while, so the thought of a 5.5 hour ride at this point, even after the challenge, was sort of silly. Especially when four days prior we had a 3-6 hour (our discretion) ride scheduled. Prior to this, I'd done Tough Love, which is a very difficult 3 hour Spinervals workout a few times, and that was my longest ride EVER on the trainer. So for the 3-6 hour ride, I put in 3.5 hours and felt great about it. But..... by the end of that workout, I was DONE. My legs hurt. I had a wicked side cramp, and other, ahem, more delicate body parts hurt. How was I going to go an additional 2 hours, just a few days later?????

All I can say is that Troy outdid himself with this workout. It's coaching magic on film, it really is. The first two hours just fly by - you really don't even notice it, the sets are fun, the cast is fun and engaging, Troy is funny, you are done with Disc 1 before you know it. He gives you a 3 minute bathroom break and you pop in Disc 2. The key here, I found, was to not look at the countdown timer. Seeing 3.5 hours left after I had just finished 2 hours? That messes with your head. Just don't look at it, don't think about it, just follow the workout. There were stretches in here that took some mental toughness, the sets got a bit harder, my legs were getting a bit fatigued, and once I hit the 3.5 hour mark, a little bit of self doubt would occasionally try to creep in. "You are in uncharted territory - the wheels are going to fall off ANY SECOND! Just you wait and see!" Thankfully I was able to shut that down pretty easily, for the most part, and stick it out. Then, before you know it, those two hours are done, you get another 3 minute break, and then the real fun begins, at the 4 hour mark. Disc 3. You know how they say the 1/2 way point of the marathon is at the 20 mile mark? I think the 1/2 way part for HC100 is at the start of Disc 3. You only have 1.5 hours left - for endurance types, that's nothing, really. But .... you are 4 HOURS in. You are tired. Stuff is starting to hurt a little. And the sets are getting HARD. This is where the coaching magic truly happens. Every word out of Troy's mouth is perfect. When I was starting to lose my focus, he somehow knew, and said EXACTLY the right thing to snap me back into the game. When I was getting tired, he knew and said EXACTLY the right thing to make me forget about being tired, and to keep pushing hard. Magic.

I have to admit that I sort of lost it at about the 5 hour mark (!!!!!) when he announced there were 5 killer minutes coming up next. Killer minutes, as you might guess, are KILLER. At the 5 hour mark, they seem like ... suicide. I cried. Yup, I cried. For about 2 seconds I cried, then I mentally yelled at myself to stop being a baby and I killed those f&^%ing minutes (spoiler alert! Thankfully Troy is nice to us and we don't actually do 5....). Now, the wheels really are falling off, but there are only a few minutes left. I am going to finish this workout. I am ACTUALLY GOING TO FINISH THIS ENTIRE 5.5 HOUR WORKOUT, HOLY CRAP!!!!!!! But we finish with all out, 30 second sprints that honestly and truly make you see stars. But then it's over. It's over, it's over, it's over! And I felt like I accomplished something MONUMENTAL! I know it sounds silly - a workout in my basement. Big deal. But it WAS a big deal, and I was really proud of myself, and so very thankful for all of my Spinervals Team Members who were cheering me on (and me them) along the way all morning long via our quickie phone updates to FB. We did it!!!!!

Super 6: Phase III

It's on the schedule again (two times, actually!) over the next 6 weeks (Phase III of the Super6 started on Monday) and I can honestly say that I'm looking forward to it! I'm even more looking forward to how this will transfer over to my cycling on the actual road this season - wow.

It's going to be a great year!

Challenge Days 15-32!

December Spinervals 32-Day Challenge: Completed!

Well, I am a lousy blogger (with good intentions!), but I did really well with the challenge this year! I can't claim to be a true finisher as I missed a few workouts, but I did MUCH MUCH better than last year and really stuck to the schedule as best as I could. It was spectacular - hard, fun, everything I thought it was going to be and so much more. I love my bike. I hadn't been loving my bike much - not because of anything in particular that had anything at all to do with my bike, I had just needed a break and wasn't getting that itch to get back on. This challenge, by putting me on the bike almost EVERY day in December, was exactly what I needed!

But the best part? By far, the best part was really connecting with the other challengers who regularly post on the Spinervals Member Facebook page. What an AMAZING group of athletes, who all blow me out of the water, but who also all reply to my silly musings and laugh at my stupid jokes. Who convinced me I could do ALL of the Hardcore100 workout - all 5.5 hours of it, and who not only said I could do it, but cheered me along during those 5.5 hours. Many of us will never meet - we are simply too far spread around the world and it will likely never happen. But the camaraderie we shared during this challenge (and going forward) is so very real - it's a very cool thing.

Each year I do better with this challenge, perhaps next year I'll finish every single workout to the letter and make it to the Spinervals Finisher page. But in the meantime, I'm loving my bike again, and that is priceless!

I would encourage ANYONE to give these Challenges a try. You don't have to be an uber athlete to do them - you can modify to make them work to fit your fitness level and your schedule. But they are just so much fun - they could be just what you need to shake up your routine. We just started Phase III of the Super6 (6 weeks of 6 days per week on the bike) and it's shaping up to be another great run. Join the fun!!!!

Challenge Day 14

Day 14: 12/14/2012

I was again planning on doing my scheduled workout in the evening after I finished my Xmas shopping and wrapping. I was still planning on riding after seeing the horrific news, to sweat out the misery. But when the time came, I just couldn't do it. So I'm stealing Monday's wildcard day to use it here, and will shift the schedule a day until I'm back on track on Tuesday.

Some days just need to end early, with the covers pulled up over your head. Friday was one of those days.

Challenge Day 12

Day 12: 12/12/2012

And we keep plugging along!!!! Today we had a new one for me on the bike, and one I didn't already own, so I thought I'd give the download workout option a try. While I need to find a solution for increasing the volume more than I can using my laptop alone, it worked out GREAT. I have a ~4' step ladder set up next to my bike to hold various crap (chain lube, gels, extra water bottles if I need more than 2, Kleenex, etc.), and the laptop fit perfectly on the top step. If this were a 100% on the bike effort, I could use headphones, but with the on/off nature of this one, that wouldn't work. I just turned it up as loud as it would go and it was fine (I just like Troy yelling at me loudly!).

It was fun to see some familiar faces in this one - Brenda and Marilyn! Brenda is an old friend from another fitness board who, along with Nancy, convinced me I could get into triathlon. She also gave me the BEST advice EVER, at the start of my first race. "When you panic in the water, and you WILL, flip over on your back and backstroke while you get your nerves under control." I'm not sure I ever thanked her for that advice - she saved my swim. :)

Anyway - UltraConditioning 1.0, which has 4 working sets that each consist of a strength building bike set (big gears) immediately followed by some sort of squat set (super slow, squats for time, plyo, mixed of all 3). It was just under and hour and FUN! For some reason the big gear work comes easily to me - it's hard, yes, but it doesn't slay me like the wicked intense interval workouts do. Perhaps it's my strength training work over the years? Dunno. But the workout was fun and I got in a fantastic solid hour of work.

I had done well over 200 squats as part of the workout, but .... again, since I'm an OCD whack-job I felt the need to do my Squat/Plank A Thon squats anyway. So after about 5 minutes I did my 70 for the challenge and my 2:10 plank hold. Until we hit 3:00 I'm now doing a flat out push-up position hold for the full time (I had started mixing in some side planks to make it more interesting). I'll mix in side planks again (and perhaps some other crazy modifications!), but after we hit that 3:00 mark early next week - I want to hit that first!

Challenge Day 11

Day 11: 12/11/2012

After a LOVELY rest day yesterday (I did get in some really, really, really lovely stretching before bed) it was back at it this morning! I felt surprisingly great when the alarm went off - I thought the week was going to be a rough start, but the day of recovery was all I needed. I was up and raring to go, and 33.0 The Pain Cave was just the thing to kick us off! This is another multi-energy system workout. We cover both tempo work and high intensity sprinting work, with lots of rest in between sets so you can really go after each set with all you've got (for the high intensity threshold work - it was a bit of a challenge to keep the tempo efforts tempo efforts - I kept having to dial it back to stay in my tempo zones...). The last set contains all out standing sprint efforts, and I clipped 475W on the last rep - I WILL HIT 500W THIS MONTH!!!!!

The time flew by - it's nice when you get to the point where any workout less than 90minutes really and truly feels like it's no big deal. Yes, the intensity is super high, but it's over in a flash! Anyone can suffer for 47 minutes, right? :)

Then it was time to get back to the Squat/Plank A Thon Challenge - we are on the build up to hit 100 squats and a 3:00 plank hold over the next week. Today was 65 / 2:00. I split the squats in 2 (they are a tad more challenging AFTER the Spinervals workout when the legs are a bit fried) - 35 before the planks, then 30 after. I mixed up the plank as well: :30 normal, :30 side right, :30 side left, :30 normal, which was a fun change up. I LOVE side plank - I really feel it nailing my obliques.

Today is usually yoga at lunch at work, but I just got an email saying class was cancelled. I think I'll do more stretching at home before bed again tonight, I'm looking forward to trying the Gecko pose again!