I feel like I've reached a milestone... the day when I prefer my tri shorts to bike shorts. I was on the trainer today and 30 minutes in, I had to go change out of the diaper to my nice thin tri shorts. Yay, I'm a big girl now :-).
But oooh, this big girl's gotta re-program my brain and legs to push a higher cadence. I think my normal cadence is a la-la-la 70 RPM. Today I had to hit over 80 for 100 minutes. I thought my legs were going to fall off. But this is how big girls go fast on the bike, so bring it on. I discovered the Eminem's Lose Yourself is exactly 85 so I bumped up to a higher gear and really pushed this one for the length of the song. Good stuff.
In related news, my strength training is paying off. My piriformis pain is gone (I think it was trying to compensate for a weak glute max), and overall my left (weaker) leg is much more stable. I still get some twinges in my hamstring but I'm pretty sure that's due to tight hip flexors. As long as I keep up the strength and stretch work, I should be able to keep injuries at bay and really make some progress over the next couple months.
Lastly, I did a bit of research on the Miami 70.3 course tonight instead of working on my client presentation; couldn't find any maps or info on the run other than it went over the MacArthur Causeway 4 times. I just mapped it on MapMyRun and it appears to be a short but 8% grade... so looks like my hill work will actually be needed for this one.
Tomorrow's Friday... whoo hoo! A weekend full of computer/work time and 6-ish hours of training. Looking forward to the latter.
High cadence is where it's at! It took me a while to get used to it but now my body prefers it.
Have a great weekend!
Posted by: Molly | 07/07/2011 at 10:39 PM
I try to hit a high cadence all the time and my legs are now so accusomted to it I really can't do any differently. Muscle memory is a wonderful thing that way!!
ohh and Eminem's Cinderalla Man saved me today while I was willing my legs through evey step!!
Posted by: Jenn @ junkmiles.org | 07/10/2011 at 07:23 PM
Thanks for the book recommendations! Cutting for Stone keeps popping up so clearly I need to make that my next read. Congrats on the strong training!
Posted by: Kathleen@ForgingAhead | 07/11/2011 at 12:10 PM
I did my century in May in tri shorts, I hate bike shorts! Way to go. Drop by for my next post, I'm gooing to have a ton of info for cadence running, which will apply to biking too.
Posted by: Regina | 07/11/2011 at 07:56 PM
We used to do tris just in our bathing suits (anything less than an IM)- and for old time's sake I raced in just my suit this last weekend! (sprint)- helped me go 13 min in the h20 for the half mile swim! :-)
Posted by: cheryl | 07/12/2011 at 03:14 PM