I got that turbo trainer for us. It’s proving to be completely impractical to try and get Wendy’s bike on it. Which is a bugger.
The idea is you take your back wheel off and mount the bike on the turbo, running your chain on to a gear cassette (cogs) mounted directly on the turbo.
Like this
Which is all good and well. Until you come to try to mount Wendy’s bike. Apparently the modern fancy-pants gear cassettes (as on mine) fit each cog individually onto spines on the spindle, and need a special thin chain to fit the cogs, because they in turn have to be so thin so they can get 11 cogs on the back wheel.
Wendy had a go on the turbo with my bike and a lowered seat. She lasted about 2, maybe 3, minutes. That was a shitload of cash well spent.
I gave it a try out. After a few minutes your legs are burning. I set myself a target of 20 minutes for my first go as I was in a rush to get to work. It was hellish. And that was in a low gear.
Today I upped it to an hour. I was sat in just a pair of shorts and my clip-on shoes, window open, freezing day, sweat pouring off my whole body. Hence the towel and that strip from seat post to handlebars. Seems sweat is corrosive on the bike.
It is non-stop burn. It’s like you are going up hill constantly. There is no let up, no flat bits, no coasting. An hour of solid pushing.
I was moaning about riding in to work nearly killing me when I first got the bike, someone on twitter said “Spin to win!”. (Spin classes being the name of group sessions of people doing turbo. Seen them at the gym.)
He may well be on to something. If I can build up my time on the turbo, and put it through the gears, I am going to batter my bike time at the Outlaw. Usually I just grind out loads of tedious long rides and gradually improve. With this I’m pushing it the whole time.
I’ve joined the gym again, like a proper January Gym Bunny. Primarily for the swim sessions, but I’ve got a new pair of trainers so I can do small bricks. Possibly do an hour swim, half hour ride, half hour run. Getting your legs used to switching from one discipline to the next is half the battle.
I’m going to give it another 2 weeks to build up some slight fitness, then join Warrington Tri Club. They hold an hour’s tutored swim lesson every Saturday afternoon, which is my day off. If I can get swim training and turbo the crap out of my legs I reckon I’m well on for a personal best this year. Which is quite the ambition in seven months, from scratch.
(Day after. Saturday.)
Feeling good about my training. Last week I did 10 miles for my “long” run, but it was such hard work after about 7 miles that I was just going to do 10 again this week and not up the distance. As I said above, I battered my legs yesterday with the turbo, so I was a bit apprehensive about my big run today.
It was groovy. I felt good enough on the way out to up it to 5.5 miles, for an 11 mile run. And on the way back, about mile 8-9 I was so deep in thought about my training plans I actually forgot I was running! That is brilliant progress. I’ve only been back to running for 18 days and I’ve already had a moment of set-your-legs-to-running-and-forget-about-it! This means I’m still 3 weeks ahead of schedule for the Manchester marathon.
Now I’m wondering about the bike. The idea was to ride in to work every day and build my fitness as part of my commute. I’ve only got so much time. Combining training and commuting means I get 60- 75 minutes of training for a 30 minutes extra on my working day. But now I’m thinking an hour on the trainer is worth many days of commute. I suppose I can do both.
Now it’s just the swimming I need to worry about.
This is boring stuff to read, I’m sure, but this is a whole life turn-around for me. I’ve not done an Outlaw since 2013, I’ve not done a marathon in about 2 or 3 years. I’ve been letting everything slide. I didn’t even do the Warrington half marathon last year. It’s not just the fitness or the races. It’s having a purpose and a sense of achievement. I am focused and happy again. I hadn’t realised it, but bit by bit I’d just given up. All I was doing was working and sleeping. My day’s off were just catching up on or, more usually, putting off, chores. Then back to work. That was it. Now work is the necessary interruption to my training.
Another plus, by the way, is I’m not dead. The chest pains have stopped, so that’s a relief. From what I read, it’s all about crap lining your arteries suddenly getting shaken free, blocking blood flow and killing parts of the heart. Or all of it. You with it. I have been *really* pushing, from a sedentary starting point, and the pains have stopped. So, either the artery crap has all passed through now, and my heart is good to go, or (far more likely) it was torn chest muscles and I panicked over nothing. Either way, it’s a relief to be able to train without worrying I’m about to drop dead. And no need to bother the doctor. Huzzah!
Buck.