Winter Outdoor Ride!

Went for a short ride OUTSIDE today, and it was grand!  Bundled up in all my winter riding attire, and off I went to Cycling Concepts to say hi to Sondre after his trip to Sweden. 
It took me a good hour to prepare my Specialized Allez for the trip, as I have not ridden it for quite some time, probably since the Tour of Hartford.  It was really grimey and I had to clean and lube the chain.  The front wheel had spider webs running through it, and the brakes were all messed up.  I lubed everything, even the cables and adjusted the D's. 
The ride to CC was short only about 10 miles round trip and flat, but I love the road.  It allows my mind to wonder, and enjoy the day, even in the cold. 
At Cycling Concepts, Sondre saw that I had a Specialized, and he quickly taped the iz, so now my bike pronounces me as: "Special ed" , something we all recognized anyway.  The Sirrus weights in at about 40 lbs or more, but a joy to ride as it has 32mm tires, and a straight upride handlebar setup.  Perfect for the chore at hand. 
Now I have ridden in Januray and February this year and well on my way to riding in each month this year.  NICE!  Last year I got to ride outside all but February, so I am ahead of the game.
Pre-ride I got to the gym to lift and do a bit of an ab workout before hitting the hot tub for a stretch.  I then went to Bob's Furnature to check new recliners, but didn't want to wait for delivery or go to norwich to pick it up.  I am now headed to Puritan to see what they have at their close out store...Maybe I'll get lucky. 

Sufferfest's Fight Club Indoor Cycling Workout!

thesufferfest.com 's Fight Club Garmin Details
Nick and I did another one of www.thesufferfest.com 's ultra hard indoor cycling videos in the barn yesterday. These video's are extremely difficult, but will definitely help with longer sustain hill efforts later this spring and summer. Although each of the sufferfest videos matches a training technique used in Spinervals, sufferfest goes that one degree farther with attacks and increases in intensity over the course of each interval in a set. For example, Spinerval "Putting the Hammer Down", which we did at CC on Wednesday, compares to the Sufferfest video "The Fight Club". Both had 6 minute long intervals with longer rest intervals, but where The Hammer was a hard sustained effort the the entire 6 minutes, Fight Club was 4 minutes of TT training at 75 to 80 % with a cadence of 90 - 100, with a 2:00 hill climb at the end of 80-100 % with a cadence of 75-80 with attacks of 100% mixed in and a sprint at the end....Man. IWKMATTKYT! This changing interval keeps you alert and in the moment working harder than you thought you could otherwise on a trainer.
I think I will do a recovery ride today watching another one the sufferfest videos - Revolver...

Sufferfest - Downward Spiral ...

No training at CC tonight due to weather, so I road at home to a new Sufferfest ( http://www.thesufferfest.com/) video - Downward Spiral...start at 2:00 and work your way down to 15 seconds by subtracting 15 seconds each interval.  Rest and work intervals were equal.  There are two sets of these and I did but one, as I shoveled twice today.  Not as good as the Angels video, as I like longer intervals with bursts in them.  Felt good to get a ride in even though it be a short one.