Musical Intervals

I like training but to a much lesser degree indoors than out. However UK weather being what it is I spend a lot of time in the garage doing an impression of a hamster on speed on my rollers.

What I really hate is watching a digital something or other tick my life away as I do this or that set of intervals. I've found that counting kj going up is preferable than seconds counting down but even then its hard and not very rewarding going.

So I'm happy that I have found an alternative. It's really very simple, ditch interval times and replace with music tracks. Tried this last two times and worked really well.

Sunday ice descended so road work a no no. I went to the garage and listened to Iron Maiden (A Matter of Life and Death), The Killers (Sam's Town..revelation, great stuff) and the album of the 20xx to date The Black Parade.

Rule of the game was simple. Track 1 Iron Maiden I did at Level 2, Track 2 at Level 3, Track 3 Level 2 and so on. When the Killers kicked in I upped everthing so Track 1 at Level 3, Track 2 at sweetspot, track 3 Level 3 etc.

Finally MCR kicked up again, track 1 sweetspot, track 2 threshold etc. Didnt quite manage to hold this to the end but still v impressive workout. Time flew by and I ended up doing 2.5 hours at 251W which is an all time best (and didnt even feel especially hard.)

Yesterday it was back to the dreaded 2x22s that have given me a fair amount of grief ytd. This time I warmed up to the Killers and then put on Maidens AMOLAD. Rule here was continue warmup track 1 then do 3 tracks and see how long I had done (10 tracks total, 70 mins or so playing time so should be close). Worked great. First interval comfortable and third track pretty close to 22mins. So track 5 cool down and start warming up again then as track 6 kicked off pedal back on the floor for 3 more tracks. Worked even better, all tracks on the album great but 7/8 favourites so finished on real high stomping away to the beat. Result 2 nice steady (well til the end when got a bit excited) intervals, pretty much on the money at 296W/304W. And comfortable to boot.

So plan for the future is to "time" all indoor workouts via songs. Much more fun than watching the seconds tick by...