Spinning: Tour De France Stage 2

"Counting calories may not be popular but neither is balancing your checkbook. Both are necessary!"

- Chalene Johnson

Time to get back to the real world. Although the Food Challenge is over for me, I'm going to continue to try to keep up with my calories at the end of every day. Didn't sleep well last night (even had to drink some coffee this morning), and I'm thinking it is from the lack of training from the weekend. Plus I stayed up reading that book, only giving me 7 hours of sleep instead of the 8 that I prefer.

So another Spinning instructor at the gym had a great idea to mimic rides from Tour de France in our 4:30pm weekday afternoon classes. He printed out a map and a schedule of the type of rides, the start-finish, and the distance/time of each stage. I know I could just use some older rides that fit the description of each stage, but I'm a sucker for making themed rides, so today, I'm going to work on a ride for Stage 2, Bruxelles to Spa, about a 40 minute hilly ride. So we will do fast varying hills, will little breaks. Heart rate range should stay between 75 and 85% for the majority of the ride, which will consist mostly of flat roads (seated and standing), and mostly low to moderate hills, with two or three steep hills that may require a break at 3rd to get over, staying somewhere between 75 - 110 rpm.

This is what we are going for. This stage is actually scheduled for July 5.

Now, the trick for me is to find some music on my ipod that I haven't used lately because I have not gotten any new music in the last couple weeks. My plan is to find about 3 or 4 faster songs to get through the first 1/3 of the ride on a flat road, then we'll slow it down a bit with some power songs for the hills.

STAGE 2 PROFILE - BRUXELLES>SPA:

0:00 - 4:18  Scream My Name - LMFAO (4:18) - begin warm up, explain ride's purpose: 75 - 85% MHR, 70 - 110 rmp, flat roads that turn into small hills at an aggressive pace. Most of the ride should be aerobic until we hit 3 of our steeper hills at minutes 19, 35, and 40

4:19 - 8:00 I Need More Love - Robert Randolph - (3:42) - Second song of flat road, with small increase about half way through, but should still keep riders on a flat road. Begin to increase RPMs all the way through.

8:00 - 11:50 Ex Lover - Friendly Fires - (3:50) - Third song of flat road. Maintain high cadence between 90 - 110 rpm. Alternate between seated and standing flat.

11:51 - 15:19 The Small Print - Muse - (3:29) - This song has 2 elevations at :50 and 1:55, so we are adding a little resistance each time, slowly building up our first hill.

15:20 - 19:37 Seven - Dave Matthews Band - (4:17) - Add resistance to a moderate hill for 2 min. 30 sec until we roll back to our flat road, maintain high cadence once we are back on flat road and check HR. Get ready to hit our first hard hill at the next song...

19:38 - 23:09 Shame And Fortune - Yeah Yeah Yeahs (3:31)- Crank up resistance to a moderate/moderately hard hill for 2 minutes, and move to position 3 to power over. At the 2 minute mark, lower resistance just a little, but keep climbing.

23:10 - 27:37 - Showdown - Black Eyed Peas - (4:27) - short flat for about 30 seconds (break here if needed), then add resistance back for a moderate hill at position 3 for 1 min 30 sec, then move back to saddle without changing the gear. Focus on pedal stroke!

27:37 - 33:39 - Assassin - Headman - (6:02) - back to flat road for 1 minute. Recover if necessary, or keep high cadence and light resistance before next hill. Back to a moderate hill for 2 minutes, staying in the saddle. Roll back into a flat road for 1 minute. At 4 mins into the song, go back to a moderate hill with switchbacks to gain speed through the end of the song.

33:40 - 38:10 - More Human Than Human - White Zombie - (4:29) 1 minute Recovery. Second big hill, moderately hard at 1:00 into the song for 1 min 30 sec, then roll back to a flat road for 30 seconds for a brief recovery. at 3:00 into the song, prepare for short accellerations on a flat road, adding resistance every 20 seconds without losing speed.

38:11 - 41:03 - Bacchus - Galactic - (2:53) - Our last steep hill (mod/hard, at 85% MHR). Climb through song.

41:02 - 44:55 - Armistice - MuteMath - (3:53) - Finish with two minutes engaged in fast flat road, and begin to slowly decrease resistance to cool down.

Calorie Count for the Day:

Cereal for Breakfast + multi- vitamin - 337

LC 3 Meat pizza for lunch -  390

Pure Protein Chewy Chocolate Chip - 200

Dinner:- 650 (pasta with wheat noodles instead of my spaghetti squash)

Calories Consumed - 1577
Calories Burned at the Gym - 945
Remaining calories for the day........................632