My foot is still really swollen from my gout flare up. This meant that I needed to resort to getting creative, to complete my scheduled workout.  I had a 90 minute Zone 1 / Zone 2 ride to do and with it pouring rain outside, that meant a trainer ride.  The problem was, I couldn’t ride with my foot inside of my bike shoes.

I tried putting on my bike shoes for the ride.  I could get my swollen foot inside, but the fit was extremely tight and painful.  There was no way I could do my workout, wearing my bike shoes.

Then I remembered that most of the super fast triathletes, leave T1 in a race, by riding their bike with their feet on top of their bike shoes.  This is a result of them having their bike shoes already clipped onto their bike in transition.  They do this to save time, because running in bike shoes is awkward and slow.  It is only when they are a little way down the road, that they take their foot and insert it inside of the bike shoe.

I thought to myself, if they can ride with their foot on top of the shoe, then so can I.  I would just do it for 90 minutes and not 90 seconds. So that is what I did.

It worked quite well, because I didn’t need to push high power today.  I just rode at a nice easy cadence and completed my workout.  While this approach isn’t perfect, by getting creative, I was able to get my workout done. At the end of the day, that was what mattered to me.