Entry Not Worthy of a Title

Over the dyna-mo-humm of the trainer, the ringing of the phone interupted my muscle-endurance interval. Not that I answered it, but it did get my attention for a second. No worries, let the machine get it. After yesterday's guilt-free rest day, tonight presented an opportunity to do something important: work on a weakness. Grinding away at a low cadence has never suited me. My typical average in a time trial is around 98-99. Taking a flyer in the final few kilometers of a race, over 100 is where you'll find me. From the very beginning, I always schooled myself to avoid lugging the big meat, and also to use the "float one leg every ten or so pedal strokes" technique that lore has it was practiced by Merckx himself. For the most part, this works great, but when one finds themselves on a 30 minute climb at 8-10%, you need to be able to grind it out with the best of them, or crack and go backwards. Knowing this all too well from experience, this year I decided to devote some effort to improving in this area.

So I got 3 efforts of 4-6 minutes at 75 rpm and 35 kph done. Not really long enough, but this was just to get my feet wet. Earlier in the morning I spun for about 10 minutes, did some core and floor exercises and a good stretch; racing out of work and doing 50 minutes with efforts on the trainer rounded out the day nicely. This brought me up to 23.5 bike hours and 6.5 running on the month, meeting or slightly exceeding my plan. This made me happy.

Climbing off the trainer, it was time to check the answering machine. Oh shit. It was my massage therapist, and apparently the appointment I thought I had for this Friday was tonight. Damn. Lucky for me she is a nice girl, and was very understanding, even going as far as working me in to her schedule for tommorow night. This is a good thing, as she is a world-class athlete and could kick my ass, or at least make me pay with a little deep tissue digging on the table. Thanks Mau, I am so sorry. Oh well, on to March. Now we get serious... Well, sort of. Thanks for reading.