Slave to what, Brian? Funny you should ask. Well, for starters, how about your heart rate monitor? Or your power meter? Perhaps your cog set or your speedometer. Your training program can certainly enslave you. What do I mean? First of all the devices. They give us feedback that tells us something about our performance at any given instant on any ride. We then internalize this information and decide how we're going right then. Is this the usual gear I ride this hill or am I killing it? Why am I going so slow right here? I'm usually pushing 30 watts more on this stretch. God, I can't seem to get my heart rate up. I'm supposed to be doing threshold hill repeats today but my legs feel like shit! Any of this sound familiar?