I thought I would be really bored with a trainer, but I'm not. Well, it's boring, but it's manageable boring. We used to have a stationary bike (still do ... anyone want it?) and that was horrible. It was so loud that you couldn't watch TV or even listen to headphones without cranking them up to a scary level, and it was uncomfortable to ride, and the angle was wrong for holding a book.

The trainer is a lot nicer. We have a book rack that I have not used yet, but my husband uses it so that he can study on the trainer. I listen to books on tape and those work pretty well, but my favorite thing so far, honestly, is to just set it up facing the television, turn on closed captioning (because even though the fluid trainer is quieter than the stationary bike it is still a little too loud to hear everything on the TV), and watch something stupid. It has to be something stupid because otherwise I get involved and stop pedaling. Those old Survivor reruns on OLN are good, and so are old X-Files and Law and Order reruns.

My husband is all meticulous with his intervals, but I am lazy even when it comes to exercise, so I go by commercial breaks and I just switch between the big ring and the little ring at every commercial. (Also, I have Tivo and I keep the remote on a table nearby, because if I had to pedal through commercials I would give up and go do something more interesting.)

It helps that I don't watch much TV otherwise. I was in the best shape of my life the year I made the rule that I could only watch TV if I was also exercising.