Today’s ride was a two hour, high cadence workout, that included 3 longer intervals of best average power. Here is how it went.
Warm Up: 11:30 minute spin in Zones 1 and 2 to get the legs moving. It always takes me a few minutes to get the legs moving and feeling good. Today was no different, but I was feeling good by the time I finished this part of the workout.
Short Intervals: 3 x 1:30 minutes hard on 3:00 minutes recovery. I decided I would use these harder intervals, to figure out my effort and gearing for the upcoming long intervals. I went way too hard on the first one – Zone 5. I did the next one in Zone 4, and the final one at the top of zone 3. This helped, and I decided I would start the longer intervals in the same gear as that final interval. After these short intervals, I had a short 5 minute recovery interval in Zone 2.
Long Intervals: 3 x 15:00 minutes best average power on 3:00 minutes recovery. I was determined to try and pace these three intervals well. My plan was to go one gear harder each time, and that is what I did. As I mentioned yesterday, I naturally ride at a fairly low cadence, so these intervals are particularly tough for me. I was aiming to stay at around 87 rpm and was able to do that. About half way through the first interval, my quads really started to feel the ‘Burn’. I never lost that feeling for the remainder of this section of the workout. Interval 2 ended up being a Zone 3/4 interval. Interval number 3 was fully in Zone 4, but I pushed at the end, and finished with the last two minutes of the interval well into Zone 5.
I am not going to lie. These three intervals were very tough, especially from a mental perspective. When your legs are feeling it, and you are only a couple of minutes in, it takes a lot of will power to keep going to the end of an interval. I find it helps to just focus on moving the legs. I try to not look at the laptop screen, to see how long is left in the interval. I often find myself just closing my eyes, and mentally counting thirty second blocks. I figure I can do anything for thirty seconds. Breaking down the effort into manageable thirty second blocks helps me get to the end.
Active Section: 25 minutes at top of Zone 2. After the last interval’s three minute recovery, it was straight into another long, high cadence interval; albeit at a lower power. I found this interval challenging too. It was just long. Not so painful that I wanted to quit, but still hard work.
Cool Down: 11 minutes Zone 1/2. This cool down felt like a relief. It was low power, so it was easy to spin my way through it. The only issue with these very low power parts of the ride, is they hurt my butt. When I’m not pushing hard on the peddles, more of my weight ends up on the saddle, which is uncomfortable. I never get this feeling outside, but on the trainer, I get it all the time.
Finally, the workout timer reached two hours and I was done. I was really done. Overall this was a good session. Pretty typical from a power output perspective, but I know from the way my legs are aching, that I am getting some real benefit from these high cadence sessions.
