commuter gear

Many people have asked me what gear I commute in. I just checked and it's a 39 in the front and an 18 in the back. That's about 58 gear inches, which is pretty small. I can get up Capitol Hill and Queen Anne Hill without looking silly though. I can pedal with a high cadence so it's usually enough for fast city riding.

shorter rest

Last week was an easy week so not much to post.

This week I'm back to doing tuesday and thursday intervals. This time a higher cadence. I thought it was going to be much easier but the program was for shorter rest! That rest interval went by very fast.

I'm having fun following a program though. I do the same workout on thursday - I hope it is a bit easier.

I held about 180-200 watts for my intervals.

meat and potatoes

Just got done doing another of the power builders workouts. This is the meat and potatoes of training. Good for your legs but not exciting. I have been doing these workouts with one of my teammates and that had made it much funner but she couldn't come over tonight. A good song helps though. I had some disco songs to listen to tonight.

It was icy and cold all weekend so I rode indoors and watched more movies. I finally watched the Star Trek movie! It is hard to go back to fast cadence on the weekends after working on slow power during the week. I have to reset the legs.

My legs were really sore after tonight's workout. I couldn't eat dinner at the table - I had to sit with my legs stretched out.

Training Plan

This week we got our team training plan from Cycle U. I did my first workout of the plan on Tuesday - Power Builders. Low cadence work with a big gear. We will be doing a steady diet of power building for a while. I'm excited to try it out.

Today we were supposed to do a group ride but it was way too icy outside. I saw some members of another team at the local pastry shop and they said they were waiting for it to warm up so they could ride. I told them the story of the guy on my team who broke both arms last year when he crashed on the ice, "his wife was really mad too", I added. Two of the guys said they were throwing in the towel and going to go home. I think the third was mad at me for breaking up the team ride. It was amusing to me. I'm sure they were better off not riding. I did a 2-1/2 hour trainer ride and watched a really funny French James Bond Spoof. It was hilarious.

Last Sunday Edmonds Ride

Last Sunday we did the Edmonds route again. It's really a fun ride. I did much better on the steep hill - Innis Arden. I tried to moderate my breathing and climb more efficiently out of the saddle.

Seattle Edmonds Loop

http://www.bikely.com/