I'm gettin' desperate to be intense!

Indoor work.  If I had steel discipline I would know just what to do every day, every workout.  Heck, I've got more than a few ruthless training spreadsheets I could follow.  But I don't feel guilty or obsessed with the need to suffer for five or six months of the year. 

So, in the interest of spicing things up in the basement today I pulled out an old steel Battaglin road bike frame (damn good frame! - Indurain won the TdF on it a few times) that I bought about 15 years ago.  Popped on a rear derailleur, seatpost and saddle.  Threw on some pedals, a few wheels, tubes and tires. 

Then I took the CompuTrainer equipment out of a storage box, fired up the computer and monitor. 

Put the CompuTrainer, computer, monitor and Battaglin together. Tightened up all the working parts, set a 20 mile course with mostly inclines, plugged everything in and `started' to race the metal man on the monitor. 

I didn't calibrate the C'trainer but wound up recording steadily in the 180 watt range after a few minutes.  I think my cadence was lower (85) than in the past (95) and don't know what that is all about. 

Did that for 30 minutes and was flooded with some of the joy of the road bikes (the body is freer to move around, rock the bike back and forth) and much of the reason I've switched away from road bikes to recumbents (scrunched up shoulders, sore wrists and neck strain). 

The heart rate (Garmin 705) accelerated to the 150 BPM range almost immediately.  Much faster elevation than on the recumbent.  This is because, on the `upright' bike the body is vertical and the heart has to push against gravity.  Felt some `weak spots' in my legs (specific to road bike positioning).  And I got a good lesson on the benefits/deficits of riding the road bikes.  I wore a set of shorts with a chamois expecting to get some mild saddle soreness or tissue abrasion.  Apparently thirty minutes on the bike isn't enough to do that.  Thankfully. 

After the 30 minutes on the Battaglin and Computrainer I switched over to the recumbent Bacchetta and the Lemond Revolution windtrainer with the inertial flywheel.  I immediately felt more `comfortable.'  That is, shoulders, wrists and neck ... I felt the stress just completely `not' there.  Without those distractions I found I could put more power in my legs. 

On the recumbent the body is mostly parallel to the ground.  There is almost no verticality and gravity that the heart has to push against.  Therefore, I find that I can generate more `power' for every heart beat. 

I made a commitment to myself to keep the BPMs on the recumbent as close as possible to the BPMs on the upright.  It took a lot more effort but I was able to get the heart steadily into the 140's with a few flourishes into the 150 and 160 BPM range at the end. 

Did the recumbent for 60 minutes.  The sweat was pouring off me again. 

All in all a nicely consuming intense workout that didn't see me climbing a wall of dreaded boredom in the basement. 

Here's the heart rate data from the Garmin.  You can see how things changed after the first 30 minutes on the road bike, with the last 60 minutes on the recumbent. 

Garmin Data - 90 Mins on March 6th - Heart Rate Only