Tough Love

[Tokie]

Good morning VeloB! I am wondering what the Tough Love workout is - can you describe it? Thanks!, Tokie PS it's not raining this morning, and I'm riding up Casitas Pass to watch the Tour of California zoom by this morning, it's my local climb for hill repeats.

[roadie gal]

Good for you! That's a tough workout. I second the nap.

[jobob]

Hey Tokie -

Tough Love is a Spinervals workout, in which Evil Coach Troy (ECT for short) walks around with a little smirk on his face barking out orders to the people doing the workout.

Don't get me wrong, it's good stuff, we just like to pick on Troy.

Here's a description of Tough Love from the Spinervals website.

I don't own that one so I can't get any more specific than that.

[Pedal Wench]

The toughest part is watching the timer when you're exhausted and still have 2.5 hours left...

I did this one a few times this winter. Hated it each and every time!

[Tokie]

Wow, that sounds brutal! I can barely tolerate an hour on the trainer - it might be more fun if my girlfriends came over and we could do the trainer workout together in the garage(where it's cold enough). Does anyone have a favorite Spinervals they recommend? Thanks! Tokie

[jobob]

There were some threads on spinervals recently - maybe you can get some ideas from these:

http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showthread.php?t=21459

http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showthread.php?t=21476

http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showthread.php?t=20520

http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showthread.php?t=21473

http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showthread.php?t=20975

http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showthread.php?t=21257

http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showthread.php?t=20902

That's a start ... and if you do a search on either 'spinervals' or 'coach troy' you'll pull up even more. We like to harp on ECT

[Velobambina]

The difficulty with this one is that there is a lot of standing. You start out with three 10 minute sets--the middle of which alternates 1 min seated/1 min standing in BCR13. Then a 30 minute set, which includes minute-long sessions standing in "easy" gears (quad burners). Then the worst--5x6 minute sets of 1 minute sitting/1 min standing, starting in the easier gears on the BCR. This is usually the test of truth for me--30 minutes of suffering. Following that is a 20 minute set that includes some 1 minute segments of standing. Then 2x10 minutes, another of which is the BCR 13 alternating sitting standing. Final set is 5x3 minute sets (all seated).

This morning is cold and there will be black icy, icy bridges, so I think I'm going to do the Lake Placid Spinerval. There are tough segments on that one but it includes plenty of aerobic sections in reasonable gears.

I'm training for the WGC metric in April, so I am focusing on endurance during my weekend sessions.