My new longest trainer ride... 3 hours

For some reason, I got it in my head that I wanted to do a three hour trainer ride sometime within the next week. I have the week off and my daughter has been sleeping later, so I decided that today would be the day. I started riding at 4:30am.

This is the longest trainer ride I have ever done; and I completely believe that it is way harder if not physically, definitely mentally than a three hour ride out on the streets. At least outside you can coast once in a while...

Am I in the majority for thinking this, or am I way out of line???

I did this ride on my road bike since I have come to the realization that it is much more comfortable on the trainer than the tri bike. I'm not sure why that it, but I love the tri bike on the road and it is soooooo comfortable, but why doesn't that transfer when on the trainer?

I used the first hour as kind of a long warm up, watching Lou Dobbs and gently spinning on relatively easy gears and keeping my HR low. My entire focus was duration, not speed, I simply wanted to get time in the saddle. The next two hours, I worked much harder, mostly staying above 18 mph, but never really faster than 18.5. (I have a computer sensor hooked up to my rear wheel... I know that's not a true relection of outside distance and speed, but at least it's an idea and at least it provides some motivation.) I watched sportcenter during the second hour and got up out of the saddle at every commercial break. For the third hour, I did some reading, which I know to the purists out there probably isn't the best thing as we are supposed to be focused on riding the whole time, but whatever. My only real concern with that is the stress I am putting on my eye muscles to keep refocusing as I move around ever so slightly.

Overall, I am pleased with this effort and where I am right now in my training and fitness. It's nice to have a 3 hour ride under my belt to go along with the 9 mile run and 2000+ yard non-stop swim already this year. Maybe I'll do a four hour ride next weekend... Not really gonna happen, I don't see myself doing any more than 2 hours on the trainer in the coming months. This is just something I wanted to do.