My workout for today called for 5 hours with a hard effort across 2 mountain passes.  Ummmm…OK, the coach said wind could also be used as a substitute.  That’s a little bit more realistic for Chicago.  Still, the idea of biking indoors for 5 hours didn’t really appeal to me, so I decided to at least bike outside for as long as I could.  I only lasted 1 hour on my CX bike before the cold and wind got to me.  I was tempted to do some LT intervals on the Computrainer, but opted to try one of the virtual courses instead.  I found the perfect one–the Iron Horse Road Race.  It had 2 mountain passes with about 5500 feet of elevation gain over 46 miles.  Yep, that sounds about right.  Ha, ha.  Riding mountain passes indoors is a lot harder than it is in real life (with the exception of the thin atmosphere).  You can’t coast downhill and it’s hard to change your pedaling style.  The elevation profile below pretty much says it all.  I was pretty trashed after the ride and was happy with an easy 30 minute spin afterwards.  The other downside to the trainer is chaffing.  Ouch.  This might require a few days off.