Mental Toughness

During the winter I would make my trainer rides interval training. Figure how long you are going to ride then give yourself some drills to do.

• 5 min warm up
• 10 x :30  high cadence
• 4 x 1:00 one leg drills
• 10 x 1:00 hard gear (53/12), :30 easy pedaling
• 10 x :30 standing :30 sitting
• etc

I found that the time went by much faster when I broke up the training.

Otherwise I would watch during football games and ride easy during the huddle then hard during the play. I would go high cadence during the kickoffs and either one leg drills or stand during the commercials. I would just make a game out of the training.

Tom

SMUJD - 2005-10-20 9:01 AM

poolejr - 2005-10-20 8:59 AM It's the swimming I get bored with. Tough to read while doing laps.

Get some of those gallon sized zip-lock bags... Bill

Tried that, I found that goggles work much better......hard to breathe through the bag

Oh, you meant for the book

Seriously though, I am making my winter reading material all about sports psychology

I started on this yesterday (pardon the weird formatting)

I've got some large print books from the library. They're easy to read on the treadmill although I have yet to try it on the trainer.

But I never listen to music because I like hearing my breaths and being in tune with my body.

You are tougher than me Possum.  "faster and healthier" doesn't stand a chance against cuddling in my world

I don't have a trainer but I use the spin cycles at the Y...I don't have much problem staying focused.  I either crank up the tunes or bring reading.  If I don't need to study/read I plan interval workouts, etc.

The treadmill...however...is a different beast.  After a mile I feel grouchy, two makes me whine and three just makes me want to be done.  My record is 10 miles, I only did it a couple of times and I'm not sure how.  I think it becomes possible when old man winter makes the endorphin junkie in me scream in desperation for a fix.

Actually I take that back.  I did a treadmill half mary once, just to prove to myself that I could.  Which makes me a complete moron.

I hate the trainer/treadmill.  I'd rather stock up on cold weather gear and just do it outside.  As far as boring, it doesn't have to be - set up a training session as someone else said (which you want to do if you're riding the trainer anyway)

As far as diet, if you aren't eating ANY high carb foods then you aren't going to have enough energy to really improve on the workouts.  You should stay away from processed carbs, yeah, but whole wheat bread, brown rice, etc. are definitely an important part of the endurance athlete's diet.  If you cut carbs as drastically as you are doing, I don't think you're going to see much performance gain.

Also, in that funky way your body has of conserving energy - you might find that your weight loss goals do not materialize because your diet is too low in calories.

And, as already stated, mp3 players are NOT allowed at races, so you should get used to training without them.  At least part of the time.