Frustration, And Its Antidote

Did you notice?  No post at 9 a.m. today?  I’d drafted a post about my newfound love, chia seeds, but somehow WordPress had other ideas and deleted all but three lines . . . discovered this at 9 p.m. last night and was just too beat (L. up at 5 a.m., thank you time-change!) to regroup and redraft.  Lesson learned.

So this’ll have to be quick – I’ve got PT soon and a bunch of errands on tap today – I promise I’ll get back with a better thought-out post tomorrow!

I was p*ssed off this morning about the post, and had scheduled myself to ride the bike at the gym today (pool was closed, double grrr) . . . so what did I do?  I took out my anger on the bike (D. & L. will thank me later).  I have to say, it was one of the best rides I’ve had in a while, and that’s saying something since I ride the bike a lot. 

To what do I attribute my success this morning?  Two things – first, I got a great night’s sleep last night, so I was rested and strong.  Second, I decided to switch up my music today and cycle to a Podrunner mix.  You may remember this post on workout music, I mention the Podrunner mixes there.

Today’s mix was called “Upgrade*,” and it is a 140-170 BPM mix.  You can look it up in the archives that are right on the Podrunner home page.  This mix gradually increases in tempo as you get further through the hour.  It helped me go faster and longer today – I’ve figured out, finally, where to set my bike so that I can spin fast, with lower resistance, and still keep my heart rate in the zone . . . in the “old days,” before foot issues, I used to cycle with a lot more resistance, but at a slower RPM.  So actually now, the Podrunner mixes are even better for me than they were before!

I urge you to check ‘em out – you don’t need an iPod, just a MP3 player.  You can subscribe on the site and be up-to-date on the latest mixes (now bi-weekly due to budget issues), or if you do have an iPod, you can just subscribe and you’ll be scheduled to download new mixes as they become available. 

And if you like what you hear, do us all a favor and donate to Podrunner . . . they’re remarkably well-thought-out mixes for a fraction of what you’d pay to download and create your own playlist.

Happy sweatin’!

*P.S. Another one of my favorites is a 140 BPM mix called “Progressive.”

© 2009, Sarah. All rights reserved.

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