Friday, January 26, 2007

Spin Me Dizzy


spinbike
Coach M2's new bikes.


Donald mentioned "Dementors" in his last post. Dementors are wraith like creatures found in the world of Harry Potter. The only way to beat them is to dig deep and think of happy memories.

Spin class yesterday was a bit like that. My Dementor was M2 and I got through the workout thinking of happy memories and daydreaming. Mostly day dreaming. Yesterday was benchmark day on the bike. The workout ended with two 10min intervals with a 2min easy spin in between. Goal was to access our highest average wattage output on the bikes that we could sustain for at least 10mins. The first interval I kept my heart rate 5 beats below max and sustained an average output of 190 watts. The second interval, I maxed my heartrate and sustained an average of 205 watts. I was feeling good about this until I found out the guy next to me was averaging 285 watts.

During the intervals I would just zone out and think about running, races I've done, races I want to do. I was day dreaming about Bighorn, trying to imagine what it might be like at the 50-mile mark at the top of the mountain, 80-miles, 90....The last 5 minutes of the last interval started to hurt however and it yanked me out of my zone. These spin sessions, always kicking my butt. Hoped on the treadmill afterwards for a mile and worked out on the Vasa swim machines. Too bad I can't actually day dream on the bike but that's what the scenery is for.

For some perspective on the wattage thing, Lance supposedly can average around 373 watts for two hours. More watts, up to 500, for shorter durations.

6 comments:

  1. avg watts in my house are 75...hmm what does that mean and how expensive is a 373 watt bulb??

    LOL ahhhh I am SO funny ahhhh LOL

    That does sound like a great workout Rick and a lot of room to grow and get better so that's always exciting, keep up going!!

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  2. The numbers sound insane, complitely insane. But the dream about Bighorn is much more realistic:) They open registartion in a week.
    BTW, our lazy friend Jas still hasn't signed up for PCT even though he promised. Doesn't he know how popular this race is?
    :)

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  3. I am glad they don't measure running in terms of wattage. I think I would need a jump start.

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  4. It sounds like the Bighorn would be your Patronus Charm, then.

    Nice workout. Thanks for the link.

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  5. Olga, you're just going to have to call him. He's in New York right now for work having lots of fun.

    The whole wattage thing is more accurate than heart rate in determining effort. It'd be great if they figure out a way to capture all those watts to power the studio.

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  6. Anonymous12:41 AM

    your 205watts can kick my measly 145watts in the butt aaaaanytime. don't drop me tomorrow, er today.

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