3 hour ride

Ok, so I discovered 2 things during today's training. 1: I hate training indoors, and 2: riding on the snow really isn't that hard, and it can even be fun.

So I started today with an hour on the rollers. Nothing too bad, just constant base effort-keeping the legs movin and the heartrate low. Come to think of it, if I hadn't kept the legs movning I probably wouldn't be typing right now as I would have crashed off the rollers in my living room. I had to head back to work, so I only got the first hour in.

After work I came back, manned up, and went out in the 4 inches of new snow we just got with The Meatsaw (my singlespeed 29er mtb) and had a ball. I haven't ridden the "saw" in a while, and I forgot how much I love this bike! It's definately my favorite of all the bikes I have (latest count was 8) just becasue of the pain it inflicts. The thing is pretty damn light, built like a tank, and has never failed me. It's like the Hummer of bikes. Not that stupid H2, but the real deal, military issue Humvee. Bad ass! When I finally do an Xterra (hopefully this upcoming season sometime) I'm gonna get a bad ass 29er with some gears and rip the bike apart!

Apart from the fun riding outside, I got to dust off some of my mountain bike skills and fly around the local golf course. I don't think many of the golfers would appreciate how cool my bike is, or how much fun it is to ride on a snow-covered golf course, but I don't think they can catch me anyway!

So after the hour and a half I spent outside, I came back in to finish riding for the day on the rollers. Coming back inside to finish up sucks. I hate working out indoors, and this was like tourture. The final time I had left to get to three hours felt like an eternity. I will say though, that indoor workouts do have their place. It's ten times harder to ride for 5 hours on the rollers (which I did a couple times last year) than it is to ride outside for 5 hours. I think it's a combo of the constant effort (no traffic lights, descents, etc.) and the mental aspect of not going anywhere while riding.

I love getting outside for the adventure it presents. I try to make my long rides like a journey. Today was fun playing in the snow, and tomorrow will be more of the same. I'll probably ride for 4 or 5 hours outside and I'm sure that it'll feel like 2 minutes compared to the time spent on the rollers today.