Out on the roads

I made my 1st major goal on the powercranks this weekend and did my "normal" loop up Malcom Dixon and Deer Valley. I also added on some extra to fill out the 2:15 that was prescribed on my training plan. Some of the hills were tough, but overall it wasn't too bad. 2:15, 35 miles, 186 watts average, 2500' of vertical. I wasn't blazingly fast, but I could feel stretches where I was definitely capable of more power output at lower heart rates than I would have been able to do before. The cranks basically force you to put out more power. I still am way lower than my "normal" cadence though. Usually, I'm a spinner up around 95-100 rpm, but with the powercranks, I average high 70s or low 80s on the trainer and out on the road this weekend, I averaged like 65. Granted, much of that was grinding up hills, but still very low average cadence. I think after a while, I'll be able to put out a lot more power because I should be able to gradually get my cadence back up, but we shall see. I also figured out how to stand up, which was interesting. It was much easier to do going up hill where you could put more force down on the downstroke and use that as leverage to pull up the other side. Quite a strange feeling at first, but I got a little used to it and I'm slowly getting to the point where I can ride completely like I would without the powercranks. Still can't do my aerobars for long, but I can at least ride in them for short periods.

On a totally different note, my 2-year-old daughter said today: "OK, I will wait in here and take a short rest" when I put her to bed for her nap. It blew me away ;-)

So that's what it feels like

I did the fastest 100 I've ever done today in the pool. Granted, I'm not a fast swimmer to begin with, but I guess that just gives me more room to improve. I've been doing 4 swims a week for about 6 or 7 weeks now, so I've been pretty consistent. Usually hitting around 9K yds in a week, which is a lot for me, especially when I've got a family and a job.

In any case, I had been hitting the 1:38 to 1:40 range on 100 repeats and doing in the 1:45 range for each 100 yds in a longer set (3x400, etc.) Then today, I did 4 times 5x50 on 0:57 followed by 3x100 on 1:53. In some of the 50s, I was actually doing 0:44 or 0:45 and in the set of 100s, I did 1:34, 1:35, and 1:33. 1:33 is the fastest I have ever gone for 100 yds, and that was the last 100 in the set! I actually felt like the water was gliding over me and started, just a little bit, understanding what it feels like to go faster in the water. While swimming, it was like a realization... ahhh... so that's what it feels like. Pretty exciting for a non-swimmer like me.

A month of PowerCranks

Well, it's been a month with the PowerCranks and things are progressing. I went on a 2-hour ride on the bike trail today and did alright. I am getting better at riding with my hands on the hoods, but that's still not comfortable for long periods of time. Perhaps the hardest thing is that I am not able to stand up yet, and frankly, I don't see how anybody could. An interesting side effect of that is more pressure on your butt for the whole ride. The only time you can take the pressure off your saddle is by standing out of the seat with both pedals at the bottom of the stroke, which is a tad weird. Nonetheless, I did some minor climbing (about 900 feet over 32 miles) and it wasn't that bad at all. I averaged about 16 miles an hour and 162 watts for the 2 hour ride, which I thought wasn't too bad.

I think I may be ready for my regular Malcom Dixon loop which has 1900 feet over 22 miles. Perhaps I'll try it in one of the next couple of weekends.

The down side?

So there is a down side to getting faster in the pool. My coach has made my swims harder this month! He cut my interval times down significantly so today I was working pretty hard to stay with them. In fact, it may have been one of the hardest sets of done... ever. Before I never really pushed that hard for speed. Now I suppose it does make more sense since I think my form is a little better and now I'm sure there is more to gain from more volume. Still getting used to an increased turnover and maintaining that for a while in the pool, but good progress thus far.

The PowerCranks are also going well, I think I may be ready to give my Malcom Dixon ride a shot although I'll probably wait another week or two just to make sure I can do it. It would be about 1900 feet of climbing over 22 miles. I haven't really done any hills yet, but I have done a couple of 45 minute rides out on the bike trail and can go for a while on the trainer now without stopping. I still have a lot of work to do, but I am also making good progress on the bike front.

I definitely feel like this off-season has more purpose thus far, which I think is a good thing.