If It Was Easy...

...then it wouldn't be worth doing.

Yesterday I had a long ride planned, but with the temperature on at 2 degrees at 9am, I wasn't going outdoors. A few years ago, my lower limit was nothing below 8 degrees, but as my Raynaud's has gotten a bit worse, I've decided to play it safe and only head out on the bike when the temperature hits double figures. Naturally this means I'm spending plenty of time on the turbo-trainer.

I hopped on for a planned 2.5 hours. In went the Tough Love DVD, and I was in for some solid work. The DVD actually goes for three full hours, but as I hadn't been on the trainer for more than 2 hours yet, I thought it best to play it conservative. My heart rate sat right where it was meant for the whole set, and as I came up to my time limit, things were feeling good. In fact, it didn't feel like I'd been on the trainer for long at all.

So why not take it to the full three hours? I couldn't see any reason not to and that's where I headed. Only five minutes later, my left leg had a different idea. That idea was to send my thigh into a good cramp. Stupid, high cadence, out of the saddle efforts.

A very easy, low gear, low cadence cool down finished it off to 2:40 with the majority at just below 80% HRmax. An almost ideal set. My legs have even felt fresh since.

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