The Games We Play

Now that I'm through with two surgeries, three days of forced and five or six of voluntary laziness, two prescriptions of Percocet (actually I'm holding most of a bottle in reserves), twenty-some Tegaderm dressings (large, medium, and with an absorbent pad for my heavy-flow days), two rolls of medical tape, three band-aids, one bled-upon pillowcase, two slings (the second effectively comped by a healthcare-services wage-slave who was okay with "eating the expense"), four calls to Active Health Management and one night of pre-surgical abstinence from food and drink, I guess...

Dammit...sigh...it's time to get back on the trainer.

My new luxury in-home training center.  Lemme Instagram this so it looks just as appealing as it really is.

Motivation is going to be tough...there are so many excuses:  I probably won't race again this season, it's so hot in here, my hair is so long, my arm hurts, wah wah, it's noon and I need to get my day started already...that coffee isn't going to drink itself while I "research."

So I'm working on little games to keep myself pedaling.  Some people use food-related motivation, but I find that a bit silly...you can't starve your body into submission, and hey, I'm going to eat whatever I want, anyway.  Likewise, behavioral rewards, like allowing myself to watch my favorite TV show, don't work all that well for me (but oh, man, Zach Braff just gets me!).  Most importantly, it's not the actual trainer time I mind, it's the riding hard once on the trainer.  So I do what I can to make riding fun, and to push myself above endurance pace indoors.  Here's a sampling of my little mind games; and please, feel free to let me know if you have found success with any others that I can steal....doc says I got six more weeks with this gimp arm.

Video Piracy:  when else could I possibly watch the Fleche Wallone Feminine, the 1974 Giro d'Italia, the 2012 US Road Champs, and the most recent GiroBio?  I have yet to watch my legitimately purchased Sufferfest ten-pack, since rogue behavior is so much more satisfying.  (This game also doubles as the ever popular "Pedal for Second-Language Acquisition.")  It also enables a number of related motivational games...

Get in the Break!:  Every time the camera shows Tom Boonen ripping apart the field in Paris-Roubaix, I pretend to be Juan Antonio Flecha hopelessly trying to match his pace over the rough stuff.  It's more effective to imagine I'm the hopelessly suffering chaser destined for fourth place--more realistic and, dare I admit, more fun?  Whatever that says about me...but what's the fun in being a Yankees fan?!?

Flecha, before his pain face got stuck on.

An alternate game of this type is Invisible Primes:  this one worked well, for example, with the Harlem Skyscraper Crit broadcast, with every lap ticked off onscreen; surge every other lap, up the effort every time the camera focuses in on the be160over90'd posterior of Brett Kielick (dollar for dollar maybe elite cycling's best ad space deal, as long as he's not in an aero position).

And one last A/V ploy, Dombrowski Sprints:  every time you hear "Dombrowski" emerge recognizably from the white noise babble of Rai 2 Sport GiroBio announcing, you sprint; 30 seconds if he's not on camera, for the duration of his tv time if he is; TT from the time you hear "Joe" until "Joseph"--they like to switch it up.  Apparently an American of Polish descent is nigh incomprehensible to most Italians.

If I run out of video motivational games, I can always break out the 'pod and try a few of these playlist ploys:

Shuffle Cadence:  let the random selection determine your speed and cadence.  Beware the sudden jump from, say, The National to, say, Nickel Creek.  Jumping from that much gritty, electrified and tragically bereft Ohio angst to such post-teenage innocently emoting Americana can be like hitting a pothole.  Or like watching Gummo while a little too high.

Oops; did I mess up your workout?

Mojave 3 TT:  not recommended to build fitness, but it will train your patience and definitely your mellow-twitch fibers.  That's a real thing, right?  You weren't just trying to make me feel good about being slow, were you?

Beastie Boys Marathon:  'cause you can't, you won't, and you don't stop.  Celebrate Adam Yauch's contributions to life, art, and whiffle ball by working your way through the entire Beastie repertoire.*

*Mandatory 2012 commemorative blog-mention/playlist inclusion, check.

Non-technologically-enhanced games work too, like Turn of the Screw:  Doc says no twisting the right forearm; so every watt below 300 is a painful degree of pronation or supination.  Go!

Non-A/C-FTP:  How long can you go before you need to turn on the AC unit?  At 8AM?  How 'bout at noon?  With water?  Without...?

And when all else fails, Intervals for Beers:  self explanatory.  You see the homebrewed sixer on my kitchen table, in sight but out of reach.  That's what we in the biz refer to as a "carrot."  And finally, a risky variation:  Intervals for Percocet.  You gotta be careful with this one, but a boy's gotta do what a boy's gotta do to stay motivated!