Winter Cycling Training: The good, the bad, the ugly, the music...

Last year was year 2 of my adventures in triathlon and my bike training, in general, was the most neglected.  My swim performance dramatically improved after solid work with a coach throughout the winter and my run didn't get any worse.  The bike-to-run transitions improved slightly.  My bike times were definitely better than the previous year.  All good news.  However, I was still lagging significantly behind my peers on the bike split.  Even folks who had slower overall times than I did (in my age group) would still out-perform me on the bike. 

After evaluating my performance last year, I decided that I really need to get serious with my bike training.  However, when one lives in a place with nasty winter weather, winter bike training is not quite as fun.  I bought an indoor trainer in January 2014 and guess how many times I used it?  Oh...maybe twice (I know, I know).  I teach indoor cycling so I thought that would be enough, right? All you triathletes reading this:  feel free to judge me right now.  In any case, I totally recognize that the only way I will improve on the bike is by putting in time (and quality workouts) on my bike.  Not just spin class (sigh)...Some of you may ask, what exactly is an indoor trainer? The indoor bike trainer is a contraption onto which one positions their road (or time trial or mountain) bike.  The contraption then allows one to ride the bike in a stationary position.  You can also adjust resistance to make the ride more or less difficult.  Like everything else in triathlon, you can spend A LOT of money on these things and get uber fancy.  I spent a whopping $60 for mine and it's plenty fine for my purposes.  However, the real challenge is gathering up the enthusiasm to ride one's bike indoors for 1-2 hours (or more!) in a sitting.  SUPER boring.

Hence, this blog post.  Cyclists and triathletes have many different ways to beat the boredom of indoor training.  I've heard a lot of people watch indoor cycling videos like Spinervals or Sufferfest.  Some people will watch their favorite TV shows or movies.  For any ride over 90 minutes, TV or movies make sense to me.  However, shorter rides usually have a more specific focus and honestly, I have a tendency to zone out if I don't have a specific purpose.  As a spin instructor, I plan all of my class workouts around the music.  The music is an integral part of my class and every song has a specific purpose: tempo, mood, genre...all of these things help to make our 45-60 minutes on the bike more enjoyable and motivating.  So my plan for shorter workouts (60 minutes or less), is to build a playlist, just like I would for a spin class, to motivate me and keep me focused on the workout. 

Last weekend, I attended a very informative cycling clinic lead by pro triathlete, Morgan Chaffin.  She did an excellent job and I really learned a lot.  She also reinforced some concepts I had read or heard about from other athletes.  Particularly, Morgan's explanation of heart rate zone training made a big impact on me.  It made me realize that in order to get the best out of all my bike sessions, I really need to incorporate zone training. In order to figure out my different heart rates zones, (WARNING:  TECHNICAL ENDURANCE LANGUAGE APPROACHING) I need to do a zone test to establish my lactic threshold heart rate (google it).  So my inaugural indoor trainer playlist has been built to accompany the LTHR Test that Morgan outlined at the clinic. Thank you, Morgan!

I plan to create a new playlist every 2 weeks so that I have a complete repertoire of workouts for the trainer by the end of the winter.  Morgan gave us a lot of ideas at the clinic, but feel free to send me your favorite trainer workout and I will build a playlist for it. DISCLAIMER: this is Kendra's taste in music so there will be some "out there" stuff on these lists.  Also, there may be a song or two with adult language. Let the indoor cycling begin!

LTHR TEST PLAYLIST

Warm-up – easy spin; 85-90 RPM (15 minutes)

Big Show – Baby Mammoth (7:03)

Hungry Ghost – Mehliana (5:01)

Stutter – Deleted Scenes (3:48)

3x1min @ 100+rpm (w/1 min ez spin recovery)
Put Your Hands Up For Detroit – Fedde le Grande (6:33)

5 min Z1/Z2; 85-95 rpm
Paradise Circus – Massive Attack (4:57)

Main Set:  5 min all out effort!

Runaway Lover – Madonna (4:46)

10 min ez spinI Know – Rakim (4:04)
Body Work – Morgan Page and Tegan and Sara (3:59)
Kids – Sleigh Bells (2:45)

20 min all out!
Touched – VAST (3:58)
Fast Lane [E] - Bad Meets Evil (4:09)
Zak and Sara – Ben Folds (3:11)
Gold Guns Girls – Metric (4:05)
Uh-Huh [E] – Sims (member of Doomtree) (4:45)

Cool Down – easy spin; 85-90 RPM

Doin’ It Right (feat. Panda Bear) – Daft Punk (4:01)
Calls (feat. Jill Scott) – Robert Glasper Experiment (5:42)