75 minutes on trainer - 1/13/12

Today I picked up a replacement steel skewer for the rear wheel on my bike.  I had noticed that trainers come with skewers, and I never quite understood why.  Then the other day when I dismounted the bike from the trainer to move it, I noticed two good size gouges in the handle.  Presumably the handle is made of aluminum, and since it is softer than the steel piece of the trainer that locks onto the bike - well, the softer piece gave way.  So rather than incur more damage, I spent the $11 for a steel skewer that won't get worn out.

I wanted to do something over an hour, but as I still wasn't sure what my plans for the weekend would be, I didn't want to do anything too much and wear myself out.  But I couldn't resist making things a tad interesting by varying the resistance throughout the session.  I started out in an easy gear, and every 10 minutes went to a higher gear to increase resistance.  When I got to one that resulted in a HR in the 155-160 range, I found that that was a pretty decent workout - sustainable for 10 minutes, but I was glad for it to be over.  Then a five minute rest period to bring the HR down and recover a bit, followed by another 10 minutes at this new 'threshold' intensity, and then a 10 minute cooldown.

Unfortunately, the Garmin Connect website really kinda screws up the speed graph for this, and I have no idea why.  Fortunately, SportTracks renders the data really well (further confusing the issue because they both get their data from the same source!)

Even though I've been using the trial/free version of SportTracks, I think I might actually donate to it - the data manipulation capabilities are far superior to anything in the Training Center that comes with the Garmin, and while the online data is kinda cool, it is still pretty limited - there is no way to get the kind of data representation you see above with the Garmin stuff.

Oh!  The other exciting thing - about 1:10 into it, the power went out.  I was down in the basement, so it was pitch dark.  I figured that with only having a few minutes left, I mine as well continue - so thats what I did.  Made me think that one benefit of a mag trainer vs fluid is that you could maybe rig up some wires to it to power a couple lights in case of a power outtage.  Then I consider that I probably only put out about 200W of power - and considering the effort it takes, and realizing that it's only enough to power two light bulbs - well, thats sort of sobering.