I’ve been
riding these more and more, and no longer on the
trainer. Nowadays, all the PC
work is happening outdoors and I’m enjoying it
quite a bit. As I’ve mentioned previously, it’s a challenge and makes
even the easy recovery rides interesting because while I’m pedaling
lightly,
I’m still training my muscle memory to fire the fibers in proper
sequence, and
I no longer have issues with the pedal stroke while on PCs. Now it’s all
about
building up stamina to go long distance on them.
The most
recent PC workout was on Tuesday, when I did one
40-minutes set at tempo, averaging about 210 watts at HR of 159 (my zone
3 tops
out at 162). The first five and the last 10 minutes were the hardest.
For the
first five minutes, my hip-flexors were telling me to go “F” myself due
to some
residual soreness, but then the muscles got used to the motion and that
wasn’t
an issue at all. I went through the first 30 minutes without any issues
whatsoever, but as I crawled closer and closer to the 40-minute mark, I
did hit
a few dead spots and heard the familiar clunk. This only happened three
or four
times over the last 10 minutes, but it was still a sign of fatigue,
which
signals two things. First, more time on PCs is needed to build up
stamina.
Second, and most obvious, when I get tired, the pedal stroke gets
sloppy.
The greatest benefit I feel I’m
already getting from
riding on PCs is my climbing feels much more comfortable. I’m not making
a
claim that I’m all of a sudden flying uphill. Given that I’m still in
base, no
serious hill training has yet taken place, but I am saying that my
biomechanics
are working better. I’m having a much easier time relaxing most of my
upper
body and just pedaling from the core. I’m very curious to see what will
happen
once I get to the build phase and actually start doing hill repeats on
PCs.
A week or so ago, when I wrote out
my training plan for this
week, today was to be a day on Powercranks,
and I was really
hoping to make it a day outside. However, the forecast last night left
much to
be desired, and I went to bed convinced I’d have to spend an hour in my
garage
on a trainer. But luck was on my side, and the rains passed in the
night,
leaving a clear, but rather cold, morning – so the opportunity was
there.
Originally, I planned to drive out
to the polo fields with
my bicycle and just do an hour of outdoor powercranking and drive back.
But
when I got ready, the whole process of loading the bike, driving,
parking,
unloading and then doing the whole thing in reverse seemed a bit much
for 6:45
a.m. After looking at all the possibilities of what could go wrong if I
rode
from my house, and death or bodily injury having not popped up on my
radar, I
decided to just roll and see what happens.
Pics or it didn’t happen, right?
Here you go:
Along JFK drive on the
way home.
I’ll start
with descending because when I roll from my house
(which is on top of a hill), that’s kind of what I have to do first. I’m
glad
that the first time I got on PCs outdoors I was going downhill because
clipping
in with the crankarm down is a bit unusual, so the momentum gave me time
to
find the pedal. I have to admit that going downhill with both legs
hanging down was a bit weird at first, but as I got used to the
sensation, it actually
felt good – both of my legs could relax and neither had to stay in the
flexed
position. I was afraid that balancing may be an issue, but it wasn’t, at
least
not today.
Then came the stop signs and the red
lights. I quickly
figured out that for stop signs - where I stop but don’t unclip because
the
stop is so brief - it’s best to pedal backward with one leg and then get
started. The alternative is to come to the stop sign with one leg in the
up
position, but why stress it when you don’t have to? A plus of PCs is
that when
you pedal backwards, the chainrings don’t move, so there’s no risk of
chain
drop. Of course, there is a third option of starting with one leg and
then picking up with the other when the first reaches 12 o'clock, but
that's a lot of unnecessary pulling in what could be a high gear, or
unnecessary shifting into a much lower gear than necessary.
For a red light, where I’d have to
unclip, I made sure to
start in a very easy gear. As I mentioned above, clipping in with the
crankarm
down is a bit tricky at first, and I wanted to make sure I could pedal
with one
leg for at least a few strokes to gain forward momentum. Once I had that
figured out, the rest was simply a matter of getting the muscles to fire
in
proper sequence and keep it upright – the latter was never an issue.
Riding PCs outdoors is definitely
different than on a
trainer. Probably an obvious statement, but just in case you were
wondering. The road comes as is and the
terrain slowed me down, sped me up and not necessarily in the most
expected
ways. It’s easy to keep a good pedal stroke on a trainer, where I know
when I
will shift, when resistance will vary and when my cadence will change.
Not so
much outside. I had to pay attention to these changes and anticipate
them to
make sure I was in the proper gear and could maintain constant cadence
if that
was my goal, or change my cadence if that’s what I wanted to do.
I messed up quite a few times, but
never for longer than
just a few seconds and I was always able to recover quickly and get back
into
rhythm. I found that slowing the cadence down and going into a higher
gear
helped a lot to even out the pedal stroke, similar to how I started on
the
trainer. Then I could gradually go into a lower gear and speed up the
cadence
while keeping in rhythm.
About half way out to the polo
fields, I realized that I was
riding PCs like I was on a track bike – I always kept pedaling. “Why am I
doing
this?” – I thought to myself. So when the next little downhill came, I
just let
both legs down and coasted for a bit. It felt good! As I mentioned
above, both
legs relaxed and after five or so seconds of coasting, I was able to
pick up
the pedal stroke again. This was also great practice for starting to
pedal from
both legs being down and picking it up in rhythm.
Once on the polo fields, I just went
around in a loop for
about 20 minutes before turning around and heading back. It’s a flat
.7-mile loop,
so nothing exciting really happened, but given that the two longest
stretches
run east/west, the changes in tail/headwind meant I had to pay attention
to my
effort. Otherwise, when the tailwind would hit, it would become easier
to pedal
and a few times one of my legs would go a little faster and caused me to
lose
rhythm and gallop, but this was fairly easy to get used to and wasn’t an
issue toward the
end of my session.
One last item that I didn’t really
have to deal with
this morning - because I was never really going that fast or leaning my
bike that much - is unweighing the inside leg when making a
turn. It’s important to unweigh the inside leg as to not hit the crank
on the
ground. While my crank length is set to 145, the whole arm is about 190
(185
being the maximum adjustment).
In case you’re curious, yes, I did
do the dolphin kick. It’s
pretty neat, but better done in a low gear or on a downhill. In high
gear,
Newton’s second law of motion causes the bike to rock back and forth a
bit –
not very efficient. I also did it a number of times as I rolled back
toward
home on JFK, always either in the presence of other cyclists or when
passing
cars stopped at a stop sign. I figured I may as well give people
something to
talk about. Strangely, no one asked me about how I can do that.
On the way home, all I could really
think about was going
over Clayton on 17th Street. It averages about 14% for .1
miles –
not long, but I was afraid that if I screwed up my pedal stroke, I
wouldn’t be
able to recover and would fall over. But I figured the worst thing that
would
happen is I would have to take the walk of shame up the hill with the
bike –
not a big deal.
As I began to climb up Stanyan to 17th
Street, I
started to gain more confidence. In fact, I was very surprised that
climbing a
steeper pitch, pedaling PCs felt no different than my regular cranks,
but I
knew that my muscles were not working in quite the same way. As I turned
onto
17th, I had a bit of a downhill to let my legs hang –
honestly, this
feels so awesome, I think it was probably one of my favorite sensations
of the
whole ride. Then it was just two short but very steep blocks, and all
downhill
from there.
This was a great first ride outdoors on PCs,
and now that I know I can navigate short steep streets of San Francisco,
I’ll
be getting out on them more often – and by that I mean that unless it’s
pouring
outside, I’m not getting on the trainer. Perhaps one of the days next
week I’ll
try to go a bit longer with a bit more climbing. By the time I hit my
build phase, I hope to be training on them almost exclusively.
It's that time of the year for me where long rides are few and far between and burritos are frequent and abundant. After all, I need some fat to burn during those long base miles that will start in less than two weeks. In addition to regular gym workouts, I've also started training on Powercranks. You may have seen the post about my first training session last week. Today was session number four, and boy do I have some stuff to tell you.
After the first three 30-minute sessions, I decided to take it up a bit and go for 45 minutes. One of the many things I love about the Powercranks (yes, I just used the "L" word), is that I'm actually looking forward to doing workouts on my trainer. I usually hate to sit on a trainer, alone, at home, creating a pool of sweat under my bike, but the challenge of turning PCs actually motivates me to do just that. I'm always curious as to how far I can push myself and how long I can go without screwing up my rhythm.
That notwithstanding, sitting in one place doing exactly the same thing, even a very challenging thing, can get a bit stale, so I made up a routine for myself to work on my pedaling stroke and to hopefully adopt faster to PCs.
I began with some steady pedaling under a moderate load for 10 minutes. My cadence was in the 80-90 range and my power was in the 150-200 (but I tried to stay closer to 150 as much as possible). Another element of difficulty I added to this workout was doing it in the small ring. If you think of a LT workout, that would seem counterintuitive, but PCs are actually easier to spin correctly (that being the key term) under a heavier load with very low cadence.
After 10 minutes, I went into progressive cadence increases, while keeping my power as constant as possible. I began with a heavier gear and cadence of 65, pushing about 180-200 watts. Then, each minute for five minutes, I would increase by five to seven RPMs and shift into a lighter gear to maintain approximately the same watts. This way I could focus entirely on cadence and pedaling technique and not have to worry so much about muscle failure or excessive fatigue (still in prep period). This followed by 5 minutes of rest at the same effort as the warmup.
Another thing I love about PCs is that while resting, I'm still doing the skills workout. Even when I'm pedaling easy, I have to pedal correctly, so while the training is not under any heavy load, or very difficult (coordination-wise), the pedaling skills are still being worked.
Then came time for some single-leg pedaling drills just to focus the mind on each leg independently. I did the following three sets. Three times with each leg for 30 seconds, followed by three minutes of rest. Then two times with each leg for one minute, again followed by three minutes of rest. And finally, I attempted once with each leg by two minutes, but this was at about minute 37 of the workout and I was starting to pedals squares by 1:20, so I cut it short to 90 seconds. Followed by another three minutes of recovery.
I was surprised to see that when I went from single-leg pedaling drills to active recovery, where I had to pedal with both legs, it was actually easier to keep my legs in sync, as if each one still remembered what to do from a moment ago.
I finished off with a few spinups, starting from a cadence of about 80 with load that's moderate (200 watts), taking my cadence up as high as possible until my legs started to gallop - I was able to hit 150 a few times.
I'm still in prep mode, so none of this was done under heavy load, as I'm still getting my brain trained to keep both my legs fully engaged and synced. My overall impression of tonight's workout was good. It felt much easier starting with PCs and getting in sync was much faster (within a couple revolutions), even in a much lighter gear. It is almost as if the body remembered what to do; that first moment of clipping in and starting to pedal was much more natural than the first time I tried PCs. I'm hoping that in a few more sessions, I'll be able to take the bike on the road with them and see how I do while in motion.
Since my last post, I've traveled a bit and have missed some training time, so I've made the most of what time I've had. I got one 3 hour ride in, right before I completely blew to pieces the next day where a 25 minute run and 30 minutes PC session just about killed me. This was the week of Collegiate Nationals and it was going to be an easy week anyway - too much travel (10 hour drive each day) and work to be done. We did pretty well at Nats by the way: http://www.coloradotriathlete.com/articles/09/2009_collegiate_colorado_triathlon_team_01.html - I did end up with a head cold from lack of rest and a cold swim in 52F degree water. So, my taper into St Anthony's wasn't really taper. I had a pretty solid day on Wednesday with a 2 hour ride, lifting session and 5x3' LT efforts on the run. The week after St. A's was a solid one and I started to feel more like myself. On Thursday I dared to TT the intimidating Olde Stage Road - time was 11:47 with a Normalized Power of 284 watts. So, even though it was only 11+ minutes, I saw this as a step in the right direction. Saturday was a solid ride, and even though it was in the rain, I pushed some decent watts - I think my best 60 minutes somewhere around 200+ watts. Not back to the old levels, but far from the 170s of the last few months. Sunday was a 2 hour run, and that seemed to go well. On Monday and Wednesday, I was wiped out. Tuesday was a ride with CU Tri Team that was 2x20' at Zone 3 effort. I managed 220 watts and 216 watts for these two efforts. I thought it was pretty easy and felt encouraged. On Thursday, I attempted the BTC TT and that went 'ok' - I averaged 268 watts over 18+ minutes on a rolling course. The important piece was that I raced the entire TT on the aerobars, in the big ring, and my time may have suffered, but I know I got stronger from this effort. Friday was a swim, that as much as I tried, I couldn't break 4:30 for my 300s - usually a lay up for me. I knew I was tired, but until I tried my run intervals on Saturday morning, I didn't know just how tired I was! I could NOT get my HR up, and it took a lot of effort to go 4:00 for my 1k repeats. So, after 5 reps, I ran home and called it a day. On Sunday I ran 90' and it was a real struggle - my legs were tired, but my mind was just not into it. Monday I rode 2 hours - up and over the backside of Lee Hill Road - again, nothing really in the tank and I called it good before I even got home! I stopped at Proto's Pizza - ordered up a Medium Pontiff and ate the entire thing in about 6 minutes. I got back on my bike and coasted home. Well, that's where I am with training. This week (5/14) I am in Costa Rica - trying to learn to surf! I am having fun, taking a break from training and learning something new!
Happy New Years! Being a true believer in PowerCranks, I actually based a few of my New Years Resolutions on this ingenious contraption: I wanna do at least one 100 miler and a +20 hour week on PowerCranks. I figure that the 100 miler equals six hours, so todays flawless 4.10 in 5 degree Celsius is a good place to start, but those last two hours could be really ugly... I have another 4 hour ride scheduled tomorrow, but we'll see how those hip flexors have recovered. Until then, keep cranking, Claus Bech, Denmark
