Coach Troy is mean to me

I have a solo day off, so of course it's raining. Raining hard. I'll bike commute in the rain, but the idea of going for a rain-ride just for fun seems like, well, not fun.

But I have a trainer, and it seemed like the proper day to fire it up. How long could that take?

• Find Tricia's spare wheel with the old tire on it
• Pump it up
• Replace the inner tube that was bad
• Pump up again
• Take Tricia's bike off the trainer
• Take trainer skewer off Tricia's bike and put the old wheel
• Remove my wheel, mount wheel on bike
• Find heart rate strap
• Look up how to turn off GPS on Garmin 305
• Realize there is no magnet on the rear wheel. Find. Attach.
• Find my "trainer bibs" (unraveling elastic too ugly for road use)
• Set up Coach Troy video on laptop
• Start
• Realize that I need to find that terry cloth drip catcher. Stop.
• Start again

In just a few minutes I remembered why I hadn't been on the trainer much. Riding outside is fun. There are downhills, vistas and views and wind and all sorts of nice things. The trainer is just pain.

I "worked" a Coach Troy video. At least I tried. I assume when he says "Big Ring, 16 tooth" he really means "Big ring, 24 tooth" and when he shouts "120 RPM" he really means "115, and not for very long." Coach Troy shouts a lot, and I can tell he's disappointed in my effort. All the people in the video are amazing. He introduces them with short bios, like: "This is Karen. She's an internationally ranked triathlete, a champion mountain biker, personal trainer, doctor, and in her spare time brokered a peace pact between the Crips and Bloods in LA." These are not my peoples. Coach Troy doesn't seem to understand, or care. He just keeps shouting impossible demands. "SPIN SPIN SPIN 50000 RPM!!!!"

About the only thing I bet I do as well as these folks: Sweat. Holy smokes. I drenched my sweat band and clothes, the "drip catcher" and a towel. I weigh considerably less than when I started.

I was toast in no time. There just aren't enough — or any — downhills. Oh well. Now I have to clean up this mess.