pain cave

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

Ride time: 1 hour at 145bpm (I was scheduled to ride 1:15 but was late for work. I rode to work and back twice today, so I guess it isn't as bad?)

100 sit-ups, stretching.

food:bagel, cream cheese, coffee, a veggie wrap, and some Clif Shot recovery right after my ride. I got a good night of sleep last night, despite having to get up earlier than normal.

So I live in the basement; My bedroom is there. I train in the 2nd basement, and I play nerdy video games online in the basement. Lance trains in his basement; in a dark room with lots of speakers to make it noisy and scary and God knows why. I quit watching videos during my training rides and started just listening to music in the basement. I watch the time less and less, and now when I get to my target HR I just ride and listen to music in the basement. It's much more meditative and mentally easier. Conversely, I have to watch my HR more closely, because my imagination gets into picturing race courses I'll be riding this year, and it makes my HR jump significantly. Gehling called the basement the pain cave, which is occasionally accurate.

Living in the basement is improving my crazy to weight ratio (Gehling has a good rage to weight ratio). We were talking ratios the other day, like the oft-discussed strength:weight, and I came up with one that's actually useful: gear-inch range to body mass index. More useful ratios to come.

Does anybody use The Stick? I have in the past and am thinking of getting one.