Winter Training- Bike

March already? What happened to Fall, never mind winter???

Well for me, it has been hours of time spent in the pain cave hammering on the bike. For those of you not familar with the term pain cave- think of dark, cold and filled with agony. Or in other terms, the place where I put my Tri Bike (Tommas Coltello) on the Turbo Trainer.

When I started this winter, I had the great idea to listen to books on tape while I road. Guess what- BORING. It is hard to maintain focus and intensity listening to someone drone on and on- even if the book is interesting at other times. So I switched to music and while good tunes can motivate me, sometimes I would find my mind wandering- and efforts slipping. This lead me to Spinervals- cycling training videos. Good decision. Spinverals (www.spinverals.com) are cycling and triathlon specific training videos anywhere from 45 minutes to 3 hours long. They are very focused concentrating efforts on right intesity at the right time. Coach Troy Jacobson who created these videos is constantly telling you what gearing, cadence, perceived effort, power, heart rate you should be at. Guess what- you don't have time to think, instead you are concentrating on good form, cadence and all of the other numbers variables. And because the lengths vary, the videos really have helped me develop pace queues for various race distances.

In addtion to Spinverals, I have used Real Rides Power with Robbie Ventura (www.realrides.tv)
- awesome mix of intervals on the velodrome and road. I also just started with Sufferfest (www.thesufferfest.com)- real race footage coupled with a "story". They are a lot of fun- well actually they suck - the very life out of you.

Using these really focused training tools, I am averaging about 100 Miles on the bike per week. I would like to do more, but working 80 to 100 hr weeks, being a dad to three kids and having two other sports to train as well limits the time. But since it allows for specificity of effort (not dependent on roads, wx, etc) the shorter amount of time is still very valuable.

I have finally begun to ride a little outside- there is some snow, but the weather is getting warmer (finally!)

My next race is in a month- the Sandy Hook NJ Individual Time Trial. It is a short race- only 7 miles and should be fast. And my next Triathlon is only 12 weeks or so away- JerseyMan Half (paceracing.org/jerseyman.html).