Stationary Bike

I'm in Raleigh Durham for 18 hours and it's a hot day in the upper 80's with lots of humidity. I had time on my hands, but I'm recovering from a cold and running outside just wasn't in the cards. This is when it's a prime situation to hop on a stationary bike at the Four Points Sheraton near the airport where I was staying and put those bike muscles to work.

There isn't a correlation to the bike positioning, but hamstrings, quads, glutes and calves still get a workout. I also like practicing building those slow twitch muscles. I sat down with a book I'm reading and hit the random program to keep me from holding the same monotonous pace. Two and a half hours later I was cooked.

Even though this is not a high intensity workout I still had to take in calories twice since I was only drinking water to keep my blood sugar up. It's not a race environment, but practicing drinking on a fifteen minute schedule is always a good habit pattern to keep your body in. Even though this was more of a time in the saddle workout in a saddle a third the size of the one on my bike, I still made sure to focus on the things I can do to support future rides. When building towards a strong 112 mile ride in November two and half hours on a stationary bike here and there can still be a great building block if used effectively.

I was sore all over my legs and butt the rest of the day while sitting up in the cockpit for a five hour flight from Baltimore to Phoenix later that evening, but happy I made the time to get it in. This just makes those outside rides with the wind at my back that much sweeter when I can get them in.