Adventure on a Stationary Bike

May 21, 2013

After the ride through the Butte, the weather turned pretty icky here in Kemmerer.  Cold, rainy, downpours that seemed to have no problem unleashing little balls of hail along with big, fat drops of water. 

So, riding outside wasn't really an option for a sissy city girl like me.  Instead I went to the Kemmerer Rec Center to get my rides in.  I decided that the indoor rides would be more about longevity and getting used to being on the bike for longer and longer periods of time than actual strategizing for the road.  So I completed three rides between then and yesterday... a 70 minute ride, a 45 minute ride and 200 step climb, and then an 80 minute ride (Friday..... Sunday.....Monday.....)  A great playlist is pretty essential for indoor riding because.... let's face it, it's NOT very interesting.  Limited scenery, bad TV options, and all those awkward moments when you catch sight of your own sweaty face, stomach, hips, thighs, and butt in the Rec Center mirror, for which there doesn't seem to exist a "good" angle.

I have a great playlist... a little Michael, some Train, bit of Philip Phillips, some Maroon 5 -- seriously, what's not to love? 

I also have a trick... I don't just pick a pre-programmed route for the stationary bike.  Instead, I do levels by time intervals to keep me awake, aware and motivated.  My latest set has been to do two minute progressive intervals with recovery in-between.  So.. level 2 for two minutes, then level 3 for two minutes, then level 2 for two minutes, then level 4 for two minutes, back to level 2 for two minutes, then level 5 for two minutes, and so on and so forth until I have reached level 12 and worked all the way back down.  It forces me to work hard, yet know that the tough levels have a definite end in sight, and I have not yet gotten through an entire set with warm up and cool down before running out of intervals.  80 minutes was the closest.  I think that my first 2 hour ride (120 minutes) will work to do a perfect rise up to 12 and descent back to 2.  We shall see.  I've tried to figure it out by pure math and... yeah, I'll leave that up to my sister, the math teacher.

Anyway, last week, between road rides and stationary rides I did 36 miles.

This week, my first ride yielded 16.5 miles, and my goal is to get to 50.  I will keep you posted. :)