I have yet to find a cyclist who truly enjoys doing intervals, let alone indoors. I don’t mind them. I guess it’s been years of having done intervals in track and cross. However, when it’s in the 70s in May, hitting the trainer in the basement is especially hard.

I planned on doing threshold intervals on Tuesday night, but my legs were too fried from my long tempo ride on Sunday. So, I decided to do them tonight. With a brisk NW wind, I opted to ride outdoors and try my threshold intervals riding Sheridan Road up to Glencoe. I was happy with my power numbers when I got home. Not as high or consistent as I would get on the trainer, but a better real world situation similar to TTing.

So, why is it so hard to do threshold intervals outdoors? Take a look. To do 2x20s, you need about 8-9 miles of uninterrupted road. That might not be a big deal in the country, but it’s hard to find that type of asphalt in the city. Here’s my route last night. Thankfully, not too many lights and recently repaved roads except Winnetka and Glencoe need to resurface Sheridan Road. The best part was that temps were in the upper-60s!