Not to be confused with a "Supper fest".

Troy Jacobson, famous triathlon coach, has developed a series of indoor cycling training videos, in order to help those of us who want to improve their cycling performance. He calls these videos "Spinervals". Well Spinerval 27, which came with my Kurt Kinetic Trainer, is called "Sufferfest".

For those who aren't familiar with this video, it starts with a 5 minute warm-up, followed by 3x30 second sprints, followed by a short cool down, followed by 3x1 minute sprints, followed by a 3 minute sprint, followed by a 2 min cool-down, and then....(wait for it).... a 20 MINUTE Time Trial. I'm breaking into a sweat just writing about it.

Well I hadn't done one of these in about 5 months. Considering that I had gotten myself back into reasonable shape, I was curious to see if I could complete a "SufferFest" again. I was soon to find out.

WHAT a WORKOUT! I forgot how hard that was. But I made it! I wasn't sure I could make it through the 20 minute TT, but I stuck it out to the end. I got my heart rate up to about 150 - 94 percent of my max - within 2 minutes and was able to keep it there for 18 minutes. It was hard, but not overly exhausting, and after finding my rhythm after about 4 minutes, I was able to 'settle in' to the time trial. Needless to say, I was thrilled that I could get through the entire training session and not have to let up because of my injury.

So that makes it three rides and a 50 minute indoor "SufferFest" in 4 days. That's as good as I was doing before I crashed out in April. But having had so much success this week, I took yesterday off and rewarded myself with a nice 'jacuzzi' soak.

Today? Well, the bike paths have dried up, work is over for the day, so it can mean only one thing - yep, back out on the bike!

Onward!