From Bon Bons to The Pain Cave

On January 4, 2011, my husband, Wil, had a hernia repaired.  He came out of the surgery just fine, but he wasn’t allowed to do any strenuous activity for 6 weeks.  And starting on January 5^th, 2011, it snowed about 4 times a day for the next 6 weeks (at least that’s how I remember it).  Anyone who has been to my house knows that I have 23 steps and two landings that lead to my front porch, and that my driveway is pitched enough that the air seems thinner at the top of it.  To top it off, my driveway has a retaining rock wall on either side of it, so when you shovel you have to toss the snow up and over the wall (and it leaves small margin of error when you have to back down it and it’s very icy, which explains all the scratches on the sides of our car).

Not a bunny slope, just the top of my driveway

23 steps to the porch

That winter I shoveled so much that my biceps were as big as my calves.  And although I kind of enjoyed all the working out, by snow storm #27 after 5 hours of shoveling, I came back in the house where Wil was laying on the couch eating Bon Bons (at least that’s how I remember it), and I said to him, “You owe me an entire winter.”  Last winter when it rarely dipped below 40 and our shovels collected dust, I turned to Wil who was on the couch eating Bon Bons (at least that’s how I remember it), and said, “This was NOT the winter I was talking about.”

This morning I looked out the window and saw about of foot of snow on the ground.  I broke into an an evil grin, knowing I was finally getting my “shovel redemption”.  But, as I laughed out loud, I had to stop in mid-evil cackle as I realized something else: I wasn’t going to be able to run today. 

I’m currently training for the NYC Half Marathon in March, the MORE/Fitness Half Marathon in April, and the Aquaphor New York City Triathlon in July (with a bunch other races that we’ll talk about in future blogs), and I had a 10 mile run on the docket for today.  And unless I used snowshoes or mush dogs, that wasn’t going to happen.

Now, we all know that there is no way I’m going to ruin all my training and not workout.  So, with a heavy sigh, I trudged downstairs to my bike trainer.  For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, a bike trainer is a stand you put your rear tire on, so that it can spin and you can ride inside all winter.  But unfortunately for me, it really feels like I’ve been riding inside ALL winter.  I road my trainer yesterday when I had to work from home because my kids’ schools were closing at Noon (for the storm that didn’t really get interesting until about 6PM).  I was on my way to ride it today, and I know there are many more indoor rides to come in this winter that is actually acting like winter.

I only own two cycling workout videos (but remember my birthday is coming up for anyone who’s stuck on what to get me for a gift :-), and I decided to do the harder one.  This one is from the “Spinervals” series, and is called “The Pain Cave.”  I don’t think it really needs any more explanation than that.  It’s 50 minutes long, with a bunch of different sets of drills.  I only got it a few weeks ago, so I’ve only used it a few times, and I have yet to get through it.  In the last drill, you have to put your bike in its hardest gear and then stand up and sprint – 3 times.  If it doesn’t sound hard ,you are more than welcome to come on over and give it a try.  Yeah, I didn’t think so.

I set up my laptop and video, put on my cycling shoes (and lesson learned: if you’re willing to buy super ugly bike shoes that were actually last year’s model but they’re so ugly nobody wanted them, you can get them at about a 90% discount), and got on my bike.  Let’s just get this over with.

So, I hopped on my bike that I named “Athena” (I just went along with the irony that the only brand of bike that made them small enough for an almost 5 foot tall woman was “Giant”) and started the damned workout.  The warm up set is 3 sets of 30 second sprints with 30 seconds of recovery pedaling.  Then you have to do more sprints, but this time it’s 20 second hard sprints with only 10 seconds recovery, and you repeat that for 5 minutes.  After that it’s a 5 minute “hill climb” where you start in a gear that’s relatively painful, and you click it one gear harder every minute.  Then you have to do another set of stuff that’s difficult and painful, but it’s so confusing that I don’t understand it when I’m doing it and certainly couldn’t explain here.  Finally, you get to the standing sprints.

For the standing sprints, you have to do an all out sitting sprint for 30 seconds, and then you stand for the last 20 seconds and maintain a cadence of 120 RPMs.  That’s about 37 miles per hour. On a bicycle.  Standing up.  Yes, ouch.

I got through all the other sets just fine, even the totally confusing one (I stopped thinking about it and just did what the guy on the video told me to do).  When I did the video yesterday – and the other 2 times I had to do it this week – I couldn’t do the standing sprints.  I did them, but I stayed in the saddle.  Part of it was fear of falling off (yes, falling off a stationary bike.  Hey, I’ve been known to trip over shadows), and part was that I just couldn’t get through them.  Yesterday I did one standing.  Today I decided to go for it.  And guess what?  I did ‘em.  All 3.  When I was done, there was sweat dripping from me and I couldn’t really breathe, but other than that I felt great.  I did it.

I got off the bike with shaky legs, but I felt fantastc.  I know that a few years ago I wouldn’t have even bought the video – or owned the bike trainer – or the bike for that matter – but now I was getting through videos called “The Pain Cave” on the world’s smallest adult road bike.

After my workout, I decided I even had enough energy to go out and help Wil with the shoveling.  I didn’t want him thinking I was inside eating Bon Bons.  Before I stepped outside, though, I decided to check the weather for tomorrow morning when I would have time to run.  I saw that it’s predicted to be 13 degrees during my run time.  That means no run tomorrow, either, but I didn’t get upset about it; I can always bike :-).