So It Turns Out You Can Totally Forget How to Ride a Bike

        You know that old saying “it’s like riding a bicycle”, meaning that once you know how to ride a bike you never forget? Yeah, that’s totally not true. About 6 years ago, I used to go for 2-3 hour bike rides every day during the spring and summer. And I don’t mean leisurely, Sunday afternoon –type bike rides. My boyfriend at the time and I would deliberately seek out the toughest, steepest hills and the most twisted and hilliest forest paths. We would race up the hills and I was the victor most of the time, the Queen of the Mountain stages. He even bought me a polka dot jersey to wear (FYI: the winner of the mountain stages in the Tour de France wear a polka dot jersey), I was that strong and fast. I owned the roads (and the paths and the forests…)

            I’ve been spinning inside all this long, cold, dark winter. I’ve been doing  some ridiculously tough rides so I thought an outdoor ride would be no sweat.  How wrong I was. (Never one to miss an opportunity to post a picture of minions, here’s a GIF of them laughing at my naivete.)

            Last weekend was the long Victoria Day weekend here in Canada so I thought it was the perfect opportunity to get out for an outside ride. I hadn’t done an outside ride in at least 5 years but I assumed it would be like, well, riding a bike (where else would that expression come from? ?),  and my body would just automatically remember what to do once it was back in the saddle.  Yeah…not so much.

           

           I called a friend and he brought over his bike. His brand-new, high-end, state of the art bike. It put my seven-year-old bike to shame. We put on our helmets, he put his foot on a pedal, pushed off and was headed down the driveway. I put my foot on a pedal, pushed off….and promptly fell to the ground. When did my bike’s wheels get so thin? When did it become so shaky and unstable? I got back up, put my foot on a pedal, pushed off…and fell to the ground again. Taking pity on me (and talking to himself, as he assumed I was right behind him), my friend turned around and came back to me. I made excuses: the seat must be too high, I don’t have the strength in my dead leg to push off properly, etc. (Although now that I think about it, there might be some truth to the latter.)  So we took my bike to my backyard and we practiced on the deck, where nobody would see me. I felt like a complete dork. A complete noob. The girl who prided herself on being able to do a two hour Sufferfest ride couldn’t even ride a real bike. Don't tell the Ministry of Sufferlandria (or their minions). 

            After about ten minutes of practicing on the deck, I felt confident enough to go back out front and try it in public. After a shaky start, I was able to get down the street to the park we were going to ride in. I slowly started to feel more stable and soon it felt like I had never stopped riding regularly.  It was like riding a bike—all my muscle memories came back and I was almost Queen of the Mountains again. I’m going to blame my old bike, as my was friend literally spinning circles around me with his totally awesome bike.

            So now I need a new bike. But that’s a topic for another day.

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           Today I also wanted to share a new recipe I’ve just discovered. It’s literally the best meal I’ve ever had, and that includes in restaurants. It costs less than $10 to make and takes less than 10 minutes to make. I’ve made it four times in the past week—I love it that much. All the ingredients are PC Black Label and it’s super easy to make. The recipe is here. (If you know me “in real life” then you know that goat’s cheese is my favourite food ever. So I tried the recipe using goat’s cheese instead of parmigiano reggiano. The goat’s cheese was good but I actually prefer the recipe with the parmigiano reggiano.)

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          Finally, a huge thank you to everyone. This blog has gotten more hits/reads than I could have ever predicted. I really just keep this blog for me, to keep track of my progress and because I love writing and miss all the writing I used to do. For some reason the comments don’t work but I really appreciate all the encouraging emails and texts you’ve sent cheering me on :)

Studio Sweat on Demand

I just had to share this website because I'm really excited about it. Studio Sweat on Demand is a fantastic website that offers spinning and TRX workouts. The link is here. You can sign up for a free
7-day trial (although with the free trial you're limited to about 8 workouts to try) or get an All Access Pass for $19.88/month (or $198.88 for a year). The All Access Pass gives you access to 100+ workouts in 13 categories, such as TRX, TRX & Spin, Spin & Sculpt, Spin & Core, Straight Up Spin and, my personal favourite, Speed Spin. The categories are pretty self-explanatory--TRX & Spin combines spinning with TRX work, Spin & Sculpt has you jumping off your bike for strength training intervals, etc.

All of the SSOD workouts I've tried so far are a lot of fun and pretty tough--they range in length from 30 minutes (TReXpress, Speed Spin) to over an hour for some of the Straight Up Spin and Spin & Sculpt classes.  There's about a dozen different instructors to choose from and each have their own style, quirks and personal music selections (so far, my favourite instructor is Cat, who also happens to be the founder). The classes I've tried the most are the Speed Spins and the ones I've tried definitely rival The Sufferfest in terms of intensity. There's a lot packed into the 30-40 minutes: climbs, jumps, sprints and hovers. In addition to the spinning classes, I'm loving the TRX workouts. I've had a TRX for a while but didn't really know what to do with it so having SSOD offer fun, motivating and challenging TRX workouts along with spinning is an awesome bonus for me. I definitely recommend checking out SSOD.

Tour of Sufferlandria 2014: The Wrap-Up and Final Thoughts

Nailed it! Tour of Sufferlandria 2014 Summary:

Total Number of Days: 9

Total Number of Rides: 11

Total Number of Miles: 166.12

Total Time: 710 minutes (11.8 hours)

Total Number of Swear Words Uttered: several (OK, many. Maybe lots. And lots)

I decided to rank The Sufferfest workouts I did during the Tour according to my favourites for anyone interested in trying them out. (Keep in mind that these aren't all the workouts that The Sufferfest offers, just the 11 that I did over the past 9 days. Also, I really like all these workouts so "least favourite" is very relative).

From Favourite to Least Favourite:

1.  It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time. Yes, it's long. Brutally long. But for anyone wanting to try just one Sufferfest workout, this is the one I would recommend. It has a little bit of everything plus great music and footage. I'm not sure how often I'll do this one in its entirety but I plan on using parts of it often.

2. Blender

3. Violator

4. The Wretched

5. Extra Shot

6. Hell Hath no Fury

7. Angels

8. The Hunted

9. Revolver

10. A Very Dark Place

11. Rubber Glove. Like I mentioned in my review, I actually liked a lot of things about Rubber Glove. But I hated (with a passion) that they cut away from the race footage for a ridiculous amount of time to show omelette girl. (I think I may need some counselling to get over this. I don't know why I can't just let it go.) Without omelette girl (or at least with a heck of a lot less of her) Rubber Glove would be sitting in 7th or 8th place.

And now I'm ranking the workouts in terms of difficulty, from least difficult to most difficult. Keep in mind that they're called The Sufferfest for a reason and that even the "easiest" is still  challenging. Also keep in mind that I'm ranking the difficulty as someone who's in pretty good shape and who's been spinning 2-3 times a week for the past year.

From Least Difficult to Most Difficult:

1. Extra Shot. As I stated in my review, the difficulty of Extra Shot depends on how you use it. As is, it's not too difficult because it's only 20 minutes long. But used as intended (as an add-on to other Sufferfest workouts), it becomes a lot harder. But for someone wanting to try the "easiest" Sufferfest, this is the one to try.

2. The Wretched

3. Rubber Glove

4. A Very Dark Place

5. Blender

6. Hell Hath no Fury

7. The Hunted

8. Angels

9. Violator

10. Revolver

11. It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time. The difficulty of this one is mostly due to its length (just under two hours). It definitely requires strength and endurance and knowing how to pace yourself.

And now, in celebration of my completion of the Tour of Sufferlandria 2014, I leave you with the non-Sufferfest minions acknowledging my accomplishment, just because this GIF always makes me smile: 

Tour of Sufferlandria 2014: The Final Stage (Day 9)

Today (February 2) was the ninth and final stage of the Tour!! I felt really strong today...maybe it was just the psychological aspect of knowing I was almost to the finish line :p The final ride of the Tour of Sufferlandria 2014 was Violator.

Length: 70 minutes

Format: Violator is all about sprints. 64 sprints in total. The sprints are 5, 10 and 15 seconds in length and during Stage 1 you get a good amount of recovery time after each sprint (30-90 seconds). This felt too easy and I was wishing for less recovery time. Well, be careful what you wish for. The recovery times are lessened during Stage 2 and almost non-existent during Stage 3.

Music: a real mixed bag--including opera. Loved the music!

Footage: the footage in Violator is absolutely breathtaking. The footage during the sprints is from the Giro d'Italia but during the recovery intervals you ride to footage that looks like it was filmed from a helicopter and it takes you along the Italian coast and over castles, ruins, cliffs and famous landmarks like the Duomo. Stunning.

Difficulty: 8.5/10. As I stated above, the first stage feels almost too easy with the long recovery intervals but the last stage balances it out.

Other Random Thoughts: I loved, loved, loved Violator. It meets all my criteria for a great Sufferfest workout: a good storyline (you're the Speed Demon of Sufferlandria, competing for a spot in the 2016 Olympics in Rio), great music, stunning footage and a good length. It's also one of the two newest Sufferfest workouts (the other newest is It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time) so it's really polished. There was also a handy counter that counted down the total number of sprints remaining as well as the number of sprints remaining at the current length. The only negative is that I found the 5 second sprints too short. By the time I got to my all-out speed the interval was over. Oh, and it also features a shark, a leopard and a hamster. 'Nuff said. 9/10.

Tour of Sufferlandria 2014: Day 8

Despite fighting a cold, I felt pretty strong during today's (February 1) ride :) I can't believe it's Day 8 already!! Today's ride was Blender.

Length: 100 minutes

Format: as its name implies, Blender is a bit of everything. The workout is divided into 4 "courses". The "Appetizer" is the warm-up. The "first course" is Acid Soup (10 minutes of a tempo ride followed by 6 minutes alternating attacks and recovery before a road race finale. And then a second road race finale). The "second course" is Pain Shakes (descending pyramids of attacks and recovery). The "main course" is "Minion Grinders" (time trials).

Music: like the workout itself, the music is an awesome mix of everything.

Footage: a blend of a bunch of different races, both men's and women's :) Road racing, mountain biking, cyclocross, some track cycling and even some snow riding.

Difficulty: 8/10, mostly due to its length.

Other Random Thoughts: I loved this one! It's a great mix of all the things I love in a Sufferfest workout: a variety of stages, great footage, fun music and a (bit of) storyline (you're riding in the Sufferlandrian National Championships and you're favoured to win). I loved that the footage cut back and forth between urban road racing and muddy mountain biking/ cyclocross. The only thing I missed was a great mountain stage. I also loved the cool-down. The first half of the cool-down is vintage footage from 1939 telling you all about the rules for cycling (make sure your hair looks neat and tidy! Adjust your hat until it's at a jaunty angle! OK, I made the hat one up but the hair one is true). The second half of the cool-down is about Davis Phinney. Phinney is a former cyclist who has Parkinson's and The Sufferfest supports his foundation. (Phinney's son, Tyler, actually features heavily during the time trial stage in Blender.) I'm giving Blender a 9/10 (and the only reason it's not getting a 9.5 is because of it's length. My ideal length for a ride is between 60-75 minutes).

Tour of Sufferlandria 2014: Day 7

Day 7 (January 31) called for two pretty tough rides. I broke them up and did one in the morning before work and the other when I came home. The one I did in the morning was Angels. I'm pretty sure the title is a typo and the full name is something like Angels of the Apocalypse or Angels: Harbingers of Death.

Length: 65 minutes

Format: after the warm-up you do 10 minutes of over/under intervals (1 minute just over your threshold, 1 minute just below it). Then there's three climbs of 8 minutes each, with 4 minutes recovery in between each one. Each climb has its own "character" but, to quote the workout, "they're not cute, cuddly characters". They're a mix of speed, attacks and climbs with the last climb being the legendary Alpe d'Huez.

Music: fun! A little bit of everything

Footage: similar to AVDP yesteday, the race footage is from a bunch of different races in France

Difficulty: 8/10. The 8 minute climbs go by pretty fast and the fun music helps.

Other Random Thoughts: I mentioned on Day 6 that I prefer the Sufferfests with a bit of a "storyline" and while there wasn't an official storyline with this one, it does pit you against well-known riders like Vockler and Contador.  8/10.

The second ride I did on Day 7 was The Hunted.

Length: 60 minutes

Format: after the warm-up there's a short attack and a tempo ride. Then a 20 minute climb before a 4 minute descent/recovery. You race to the finish line with some brutal attacks before cooling down.

Music: I really disliked the music used in the first half of the workout. I'm not sure what to call it...uninspired rock, maybe? Luckily, the dance beats that I'm really digging with these workouts made an appearance for the second half.

Footage: the Tour de Suisse. The footage during the climb was spectacular. (I'm assuming it's the Swiss Alps.)

Difficulty: 8.5/10. The 20 minute climb and the attacks near the end were pretty brutal.

Other random thoughts: I loved the music during the second half of the workout and the scenery and the fact there was a bit of a storyline (you're the captain of the Sufferlandrian Pro Team). I want to revisit this one when my legs aren't so tired. 8/10.

Tour of Sufferlandria 2014: Day 6

Today's ride for Day 6 (January 30) was A Very Dark Place. I can't believe I only have 3 more days to go! (But tomorrow will be brutal, with 2 rides that are each 60+ minutes on tap).

Length: 50 minutes

Format: after a short warm-up and 2 x 30 second sprints, there's 5 "maximum power" intervals of 4 minutes each (with 3 minutes recovery between each one). These are the "dark places". During the MPI's you're working at an RPE of between 8-10/10. The MPI's are a mix of speed, climbs and attacks.

Music: rock and alt-rock. For some reason, I'm finding that I prefer Sufferfest workouts with more dance music, which is odd since dance isn't usually something I listen to. But I just find that the dancey beats make it easier for me to push harder.

Footage: various races (with long, hypenated names) from the Paris-Nice-Flanders area. Kind of bland and not my favourite footage--until the last "dark place", which was a climb through stunning mountains and valleys.

Difficulty: 8/10. I found that having the 3 minute recovery after each MPI made this one less challenging that it would have been with shorter recovery times.

Other Random Thoughts: I liked this workout but it won't be among my favourite Sufferfests. The just-OK music and footage keep it lower down in my rankings and I'm finding that I prefer the Sufferfests that have a bit of a "story" to follow. Plus, there was no mention of the minions in this one and I missed the mosochistic little guys. 7.5/10. So, just to make me happy, here's a non-Sufferfest minion cheering me on: 

Tour of Sufferlandria 2014: Day 5

Ok, a confession: I cheated a bit today. Day 5 called for a 50 minute ride and a 20 minute ride but instead of doing them back-to-back I did the 20 minute ride this morning with an upper body workout and I did the 50 minute ride after work. And I plan on doing the same thing on Friday, which calls for two 60 minute workouts :p

The longer ride for today was The Wretched.

Length: 50 minutes

Format: according to the intro, one of the minions lost the route map so, unlike most Sufferfest workouts (which clearly lay out the format for you during the introduction), The Wretched leaves you guessing. You're a member of the Sufferlandian National Team who found success years ago but then you slacked off and became--the horror--a "Couchlandrian".

So to win back your honour and glory you're racing in the Tour de France. There's a warmup and then it's a 35 minute race stage in which anything can happen: there's hills and descents, attacks and sprints as you fight off the competition to reclaim your former glory

Music: mostly rock and alt-rock. Good beats.

Footage: THE TOUR DE FRANCE, y'all!

Difficulty: 7.5/10. Even though there's some tough hills, sprints and attacks, none of them last too long. A good challenge but totally doable for a Sufferlandrian

Other Random Thoughts: I actually really liked the fact that I didn't know what was coming--it made the race stage seem very true-to-life. The 35 minute race stage literally flew by. What I love about these workouts is that no matter how tired I feel at the start, the music, humour, motivation from the minions, etc. really encourage me to push harder and soon I totally forget how tired I was feeling and just get in the zone. 8.5/10

The shorter ride Day 5 was Extra Shot. This one is meant to be an "add-on" to other Sufferfest workout...for masochists who didn't get enough suffering from doing just one workout.

Length: 20 minutes

Format: since it's meant to be an add-on, there's no warmup. Just 20 minutes of varying intensity. There's tough cobbles to get over and six "bergs" (small hills).

Music: mostly electronica. It's decent but nothing special.

Footage: the women's Tour of Flanders and World Road Championship

Difficulty: hmmm, on it's own, it's about a 6/10. But added on after another Sufferfest workout (or any tough workout), it's probably an 8/10. The length makes it doable.

Other Random Thoughts: this is the Sufferfest workout that I've done the most, due to it's length. I add it on after a lot of workouts. It's a great "get in and get it done" workout. 8/10. I think it would get an 8.5 or maybe even a 9 if I liked the music more. (And it's not that the music is bad, it's just not my personal favourite.)

Tour of Sufferlandria 2014: Day 4

Day 4 (January 28) of the Tour is done! Today was Hell Hath No Fury.

Length: 75 minutes

Format: HHNF is a race simulation and you're a member of the Sufferlandria National Team. There's a short warm-up followed by 5 minutes of relatively easy riding on flats. Then a 20 minute race with some hills and attacks followed by a short recovery. There's another 20 minute race stage, another short recovery and then a 3 minute time trial before the cooldown.

Music: dancey and fun. Great, pounding beats.

Footage: mostly the Tour of Flanders. What's awesome about HHNF is the footage is all of female races :)

Difficulty: 8/10. Like yesterday, this rating might change with time. My legs were tired after three days of hard riding. But I found the music really motivating and that seemed to make it seem easier than it may actually be.

Other Random Thoughts: HHNF is a winner. I loved riding with the ladies and loved the music. 8/10. One con is that this one doesn't seem as polished as the other Sufferfest workouts I've done over the past few days. The on-screen timers look different and there were a few typos. (But don't tell the minions I said so...they're still looking for any excuse to beat with me a stick like they were threatening to all throughout HHNF).