The weather was absolutely beautiful today.  It actually felt like a summer’s day, even though it is only early April.  When the weather is this good, it doesn’t seem right to do my bike workout on the trainer.  Even though the workout had some specific hard intervals, that are easier to dial in on the trainer, I still chose to go outside and do the intervals in the park.

It is much easier to control power when doing hard intervals on the bike trainer.  You can easily ride at a constant effort and keep that effort high for the whole interval.  Outside, it is a very different story.

If you have power target to hit, it can be quite challenging to maintain it, when riding outside.  Your power naturally varies due to the terrain and  the roads themselves.  It is easy to hit high power going up hills, but it can be very difficult to do so, when going down hills.  Turning around sharp corners, means applying the brakes and using almost no power.  Finally, when you ride somewhere that is busy with other people and vehicles, you need to make adjustments to react to situations that pop up.  All this leads to a very varied power output across the interval.

So what do I do.  I simply do my best, to follow the spirit of the workout.  If I have a hard interval, then I try to ride as hard as possible.  My power can vary from the target, but I try to hit the highest average that I can given the conditions that I face. 

In the end, I know that I worked hard today and that is what matters.  I am getting positive adaptation, even if I didn’t hit my target numbers exactly.  Besides, doing intervals in the park, is way more fun than doing them on the trainer.