The best music is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with. -- Bruce Springsteen
This weekend I had my first power test on my bike - to start making good use of that awesome Christmas present from my husband. Power tests, for the uninitiated, suck. A lot. It is all about medium-length ALL OUT intervals.
Usually when I'm on the trainer, I watch TV. It's good guilty pleasure time and often, since we have side-by-side trainers, IronSherpa and I catch up on some of the series we're watching. But I knew this weekend's ride would be different. I wasn't going to have the wherewithall to focus on the television if I was truly focused on the intervals.
Instead, I loaded up my favorite tunes, popped on some headphones, and jacked up the volume on my iPod. Yeah, I know. It's not good for my ears. It was, however, super necessary for my success for this training session.
Songs are personal - hearing a song often takes you back to a place, a memory, an event...so of course these will vary by people. But let me tell you about some of the songs that saved me - that pushed me, that made the intervals hurt a little less, that made what my coach called AN EXCELLENT POWER TEST possible (her caps, not mine!). I didn't time these out in any particular way - I just took one of my "pump it up" play lists and put it on shuffle. Sometimes I think my iPod possesses some sort of intelligence...because a lot of times just the right song pops up at Just. The. Right. Time. Crazy, right?
Warm-up Power Interval (3m ALL OUT): Kanye, Stronger
N-now th-that that don't kill me
Can only make me stronger
Three minutes ALL OUT is hard, but it'll look easy after I finish...the best way to think about this workout (and all the devious workouts my coach plans based on my power numbers) will either kill me or make me stronger. Great song to get me into the right mindset for this workout. (Spoiler alert - I didn't die, so I guess this workout made me STRONGER!)
Power Interval #1 (9m ALL OUT): New Order, Shell Shock
Hold on! It's never enough
It's never enough until your heart stops beating
The deeper you get, the sweeter the pain
Don't give up the game until your heart stops beating
Damn. Nine minutes all out is really flippin' hard. Time to get deep in the pain cave and embrace the pain. I actually smiled when this song shuffled up. I probably shouldn't be smiling, it is harder to breathe, but it made me super happy and I rocked on through the interval in part on this song. This song was also the part of the soundtrack for my high school career...those memories made me smile too. :o
Power Interval #2 (9m ALL OUT): Van Halen, Right Now
Miss the beat, you lose the rhythm, and nothing falls into place
Only missed by a fraction, slipped a little off your pace
The more things you get the more you want
Just trade in one for the other,
Workin' so hard to make it easier, whoa
Got to turn, c'mon turn this thing around.
Right Now, hey, it's your tomorrow.....
So...at the beginning of overtime at Capitals games in the early 2000s, they always played this song. (And probably at every critical moment in sporting events in the late 90s and early 2000s everywhere, but hey, we were in DC and I love hockey. What can I say.) Anyway...just the first couple notes of the opening riff and I was on fire. Plus it's a nice long tune...so by the time it was over, I was a good way through the last hard interval. Which was beyond hard. OMG. I was dying...but I kept pedaling my little heart out. It's my tomorrow on the line. (BTW - the video for this still plays in my head when I hear it. Crazy.)
Cool Down: Imagine Dragons, I Bet My Life
Now remember when I told you that's the last you'll see of me
Remember when I broke you down to tears
I know I took the path that you would never want for me
I gave you hell through all the years...
OK. So this song doesn't fit quite as nice, but I giggled when it hit during my cooldown because I was crying. I am an exertion crier. So embarassing. Whenever I give it my all, I end up in tears afterwards. Usually it happens after races...but yeah, I was tearing up on the trainer during the cooldown of the power test. Which I guess is good, because it means I gave my coach everything I had (as opposed to the hell I usually give her...hahahaha).
So there's the story of my successful power test...and the songs that saved me.
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