I've been trying to do two or three turbo trainer sessions each week to get the miles in. Although these have proved to be a great workout they can be a little bit tedious and I've needed something to take my mind off of just turning the pedals and going nowhere for an hour. As I don't have a fancy trainer with a video screen showing roads and bike races the only way to get by has been to put my headphones on and get immersed into some audio.
On Spotify I found a playlist that someone called Sarah Croucher (thanks Sarah, whoever you are!) has pulled together specifically for Turbo Trainer sessions. It has a whole bunch of dance tracks that seem to be pitched at the right tempo—it's well worth subscribing to if you want something ready-made for your workouts. Not knowing anything about how to use the turbo to best effect and vaguely remembering someone much sportier than me once talking about about 'intervals' I decided on a strategy of listening to the playlist on a random setting and then alternating between hard and harder gears when a new song comes on whilst trying to keep a pedal cadence of about 90rpm. This gives me a chance to stretch myself and then have a relative breather at regular 'intervals'. (Yes, I have since discovered that intervals are to do with heart rate zones—ah well!) So far, so sweaty.
After a few sessions I realised that even though the playlist is pretty large I was hearing the same songs too frequently and so decided to clone it and add a few high-tempo tunes of my own. Help yourself to subscribing to that second Spotify playlist but please, no comments on my personal musical taste!
One of the tunes I added which I thought would be great to spin to is This Corrosion. I've loved it since I saw it on Top of The Pops when I was in Primary School and keep coming back to it. If you've never heard the song, sit back, relax and treat yourself to some 1980s gothic pop perfection:
The problem is that the album version of this song is eleven minutes long. My turbo trainer sessions have therefore now turned into a game of 'when will This Corrosion turn up and will it be at the point where I'm going to the harder gear'? Tonight Spotify decided to treat me to it 45 minutes into my one hour training session right after a short 'easier' song:
A super hard ten minutes at the end there tonight. I didn't quite manage to keep the pace of earlier 'hard' songs but I didn't drop too far below 90rpm and was quite happy with that! Although I've been tempted to skip the song when it has popped up, there's a real sense of satisfaction of getting to the end and not giving up, which I guess is what this crazy charity cycling mission is all about?
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