Today's question is how can I get stronger on my bike? I'm stumped to know whether it's a power thing, an efficiency/technique thing, a power to weight ratio thing or whether I'm perhaps just lazy and ease off when the pain starts. I rode with several of the (fast) Gearshifters again tonight and, although I kept up with them most of the way around, I got dropped on the hills. What is up with that??? I don't want to beat everyone, I just want to be able to keep up.
Sigh. Frustrated.
It wasn't that big a ride either. We went around the Bays and up to Brooklyn then some of the pack decided to ride on up to the Turbine and the rest of us rode back through town. So it was short, but for me it was fairly fast. I guess I should also remember that this is day six of a week of stepped-up cardio.
Other than that I had a lovely day. I had lunch with a friend (hi Fi) who has just returned from London. She's interested in buying a road bike so I took her into Pennys. We wandered around and had a look at a few bikes and it turned out that the bike that seemed to best suit her needs was - Cleo. I said it would just be too weird for us to be riding the same bike so Dave offered to put some (truly hideous) pink bar tape on hers. He also showed me a gorgeous new full carbon Scott in my size. Only $9,000 (cough, splutter) and at 6kg, as Dave put it, scarily light. I don't think I'd ever feel brave enough to ride it in this city! We did talk about upgrading my (Tiagra) front derraileur, which I may do at some point. I really don't like the way it shifts.
I have another dilemma as well. I was planning on running tomorrow and doing some leg weights (bumping up the leg press incase my power issues are strength-based), then swim and Balance on Friday, a 100km ride on Saturday then a long run on Sunday. However Dee is riding Saturday (I'm not sure where), then on Sunday riding out to the Akatarawas and back to Wellington via Waikanae, which I really want to do. She's then planning a light ride on Monday. I want to ride with the Squad as much as possible but am also conscious that I need to start thinking about preparing for the Rotorua Marathon. I really want to do the ride on Sunday, but it will be quite long. So do I do my long run tomorrow and a shorter, easy run on Saturday so as to not completely smash my legs? Or do I just suck it up and do my long run on Saturday anyway and suffer trying to keep up on Sunday?
I need to get in touch with Dave and find out where that programme is. Perhaps I should just give him a call!
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Obviously I know little to nothing about cycling but do you do much in the way of short intense hill repeats on your bike rather than long grinds? I say this because of Dionne mentioning them as part of her training and we all know what a speed demon at least on foot she is
Yeah, I need to head down to Murchison Street (the first street on the right on the way up from Owhiro Bay to Happy valley) and do some hill repeats. I just don't know when I can fit it in, hence my need to hear back from Dave!
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