Recovery Rides

I find the whole recovery ride thing a bit hard to get my head round. Yes I know you need to do proper recovery rides between hard sessions but it is so tough to keep throttled back when you are out on the road, on the trail. One whiff of a nice bit of singletrack is enough to get me revved up and going, one half decent hill on the road and I’ll attack it with gusto.

I think I have the solution. As the perceived effort of a recovery ride is “I’m comfortable and could maintain this pace all day” and sessions should be between 15 minutes and one hour maximum, the turbo has to be the ideal tool for the job. In an attempt to introduce a new habit into my regime, I have decided to try the following. On the days between hard and or long rides, I will do a 30 minute recovery ride, on the turbo before work. While the weather is fine (i.e. above freezing) I can do it outside, looking over the fields, under the shelter built between my office and bike shed.

With minimal setup required, it will fill the gap between 8.00am when my wife goes to work, and actually knuckling down to a hard day at the coal face (well the computer). I tried it today and I still had 30 minutes left before work officially began.

Whether this wil help me in any way has yet to be seen but minimal effort notwithstanding, there has to be some benefit after all, all exercise is good isn’t it?