An Awesome Birthday Present!!!!

Eric just left to go back to work after stopping at home for lunch.  It’s really nice that he lives so close to work because on days when I’m up at his place during the summer, I get to eat lunch with him.  Sadly, those days will be long gone in about a week and a half when I return to work for another school year. 

While Eric was home, he gave me a birthday present!  I present to you one of the best birthday presents ever!!!

It’s a CycleOps Magneto bike trainer!!!

If you follow along with my blog in any form of consistency, you will know that I have mentioned my desire for a bike trainer on more than one occasion.  They are kind of pricey, so I’ve been putting the purchase off, knowing that by late fall I will need one if I want to keep up with my cycling during the winter months.  Everything I write about in the blog usually comes up in conversation between Eric and I, so he was obviously listening to my many mentions of wanting a bike trainer!

I’m so excited (and I’m such a triathlon nerd, I know)!

I think we’re going to set it up in his house due to lack of space in my apartment.  We’re going to make one of his upstairs bedrooms (which currently houses my set up backpacking tent and other hiking items) into a work-out room of sorts.  I need to purchase a rubberized mat to put the trainer on and the room will definitely need a TV/DVD player because who wants to ride on a bike staring at a wall for an hour???  The room is currently a very vivid shade of blue (the previous owners color choice…it’s a project that just hasn’t been touched yet), so we’ll have to get that painted as well :).  Any color suggestions??? 

I’m incredibly excited about the present, though!  I just can’t stop smiling about it.  I will get so much use out of it in the upcoming months.  Heading in to my Half Ironman, I will likely be doing most of my riding outdoors.  But if it’s raining, I don’t have to re-arrange my schedule now!  Also, when the Half Ironman is over, I can use the bike trainer during the winter months for cross-training while I’m training for potential marathons.  AND, if all of that wasn’t good enough, my Ironman training is going to start in mid-March, which can be pretty chilly here in Cincinnati.  But who cares about the weather when you have an indoor bike trainer!!! 

Ok, I’ll stop talking about it.  I’m sure it’s not as exciting to everyone else as it is to me.  I’m pretty darn happy about it, though!