Winter wonderland on steroids

Snow: 10 to 15 cm in New West, 28 cm in Chilliwack. This morning I woke up to a Winter wonderland – on steroids! Needless to say, I was home bound today. While the snow in New West quickly melted away, the highway cams and news reports for Chilliwack showed treacherous driving conditions due to the mounds of snow – some drifts were as high as 34 cm! – which was accentuated later in the day by freezing rain. It was the most amount of snow the community had seen in 12 years. And given that we on the West Coast don’t see snow like this too often, most of us don’t employ winter tires. So yeah, I wasn’t driving.

New West snow:

While I may not have physically been at work, I was in fact working … the sharp, sheering pains in my back from sitting on a wood chair all day are proof.

I think my body knew that my regular routine had been thrown for a loop. Because despite the fact that I woke up at the regular hour, with perfect blood sugars, and ate my regular breakfast at the regular hour, my blood sugars took an Olympic-style dive from 5.4 down to 2.8. Yikes!

When the work was all done for the day, I put my bike shorts on and plopped myself down on the trainer and started pedaling. It was my first go on the trainer and I was little concerned as to how I would take to it. Mario wasn’t kidding, it was horrendously mind-numbing. He guessed I’d last 20 minutes, I was ready to get off at 10. But, I persevered … if only to finish the episode of How I Met Your Mother that I’d started.

TODAY’S “RIDE”:

  • 4 p.m. BG before: 8.0
  • Temp basal – 50 per cent
  • Trainer: 40 minutes
  • 4:50 p.m. BG after: 3.8 (mandarin orange)

Before getting on the bike I was tempted to put my helmet on to make it more authentic. But then I thought, wait a sec, that’s not even my favourite part of riding a bike, and seeing as how I couldn’t bring the outdoor scenery, the mountains and the trees and the ocean and the fresh air inside, How I Met Your Mother would have to suffice.

I opted not to fast forward through the commercials, and instead used them as a time frame for increasing the tension and my pedal speed. There’s a reason why I don’t watch commercials – they really do take forever! I swear there was a set of 20 in one segment … okay maybe not that many, but it sure as heck felt like it.

By 20 minutes, I had found my groove, and was bobbing my head to some really bad 80s music in a Kleenex commercial, beads of sweat were dripping down from my forehead, and I was finding it labourious to even laugh at Barney’s Awesomeness. By the end of the episode though, I wasn’t quite ready to hop off, I figured I could keep going, so I started another episode. But two seconds in my body was done. It knew the show was over, it knew that it should no longer be on that trainer, it wanted off. Next time, I think I’ll put in an hour long show.

How do you succeed in the trainer/stationary bike mental battle?

2 thoughts on “Winter wonderland on steroids”

  1. I have been doing 45 minute segments on the trainer. I download hour long shows and watch them. Without the commercials they are 45 minutes in length, however, I don’t get the benefit of increasing the tension and riding hard for said commercial time. Darn!! The sacrifice I make….
    Happy riding!

  2. Spinervals. I have one or two but you can order a whole bunch. You will soon love to hate coach Troy.

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