Structured Workouts or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Rollers

For you folks out it Facebook land  - Alex again (this blog automagically shows up in my notes). Just so you know, while I can suck wheels with the best of them, I'm not THE Wheelsucker. That nom de plume belongs to Ali Meller, who also contributes to this blog.

Now that we've had so much snow, the prospects for riding on the road are dim dispite Chris Harshman's planned ride in Washington Co. tomorrow (I thought he we joking). So I've had to start thinking about indoor (stationary) riding again. Sure, trainers and rollers are excellent for well structured workouts. There's only one problem, I HATE structured workouts because frankly I'm just not that disciplined. However, after no riding this weekend, I got the rollers out, shoveled a spot in the driveway and mounted up. I was having some real trouble keeping upright, weaving all over the place. I was thinking "WTF" my bike handling is not *that* bad. I was riding my CAAD 9, so I thought maybe I'd switch to the Roubaix which has a little more relaxed geometry. No better. I was puzzled. What was going on? I checked the level and looked under them to make sure that I was not hitting anything. I suddenly realized, DOH, I was on them backwards (with the double drums in the front. Not good. I guess it's been *that* long since I've ridden them. I got things turned around and voila, I was off and riding.

I was all decked out in winter gear as it was 30 degrees, but the sun was so bright and warm, I was quickly down to my summer gear. It felt really good and I actually worked on redefining my faded tan lines...

What the heck, if I'm going to spend time on the rollers, I might as well make the best of it. Since the whole structured workout thing is foreign to me, I'm groping in the dark as to what is both the best time spent on them and what is bearable. I warmed up and decided to do 2x20 intervals, which gave me about 1:15 with warmup/down.

I listened to Car Talk - one of my favorite podcasts, light and funny. When that was over, on to some music. One really nice thing about the iPhone 3GS is the voice dialing/control. "Play artist Edie Brickell" and it starts playing; excellent. I love The album "Picture Perfect Morning" especially because it reminds me of the first ABRT Spain trip in 2008. Perfect for getting through this. To me, these two images are synonymous:

 

When I got done, I felt great.; tired, but refreshed and upbeat. Almost like I was riding outside on a nice sunny day! So maybe that's the key, get the contraption outside in the sun instead of cooped up in a dark, damp garage. Maybe, I can actually learn to like, and maybe even love the rollers. We'll see.