Two bike workouts this week

This past week, I did two bike workouts.  Not close to the workouts I was supposed to be doing, but just getting back on the bike is a big accomplishment.  What makes it even worse is that most of my bike workouts are going to be on my indoor trainer, which I really don't enjoy.  Perhaps my favorite part of riding my bike (and triathlon training in general) is riding my bike outside and feeling the wind and sun on my face.  Riding in your own living room (but going nowhere, which for the record makes me sweat like a whore in church because of the lack of breeze) is quite possibly the most boring thing I can imagine.  Music is helpful, but I'm thinking I might actually have to start watching movies / the news / sports.  At least I won't feel guilty doing it.

Anyway, the two workouts I did were essentially the same rides, but the second time just added a little more intensity.  The links are below.  My goal this week is to hit more of my workouts (so I need to hit the road today and get my run in!).

Here is my ride from Saturday (cut about 20 minutes short because of a time crunch - but at least I got the main set in). It was supposed to be a 60 minute ride in Zone 3, but with two 8-minute intervals in zone 4.



And here is yesterday's ride - same as Saturday, but with an extra 8 minute interval in Zone 4 (so three 8 minute intervals in Zone 4).


So what am I noticing?  The big thing is that my pedal strokes are not as smooth as they used to be.  I need to focus on that, because when I do, I notice I'm much more efficient on the bike (i.e., I can pedal faster at a lower heart rate).  That takes me to observation #2 - I also need to focus on getting my average pedal cadence in the 90s at least (i.e., at least 90 rotations per minute) ... 100s would be fantastic, but if I can maintain that, I might want to consider professional cycling.  If you click on "view details," you can look at all of my statistics and see that my average cadence for these rides was in the 80s -- I'd like to get that higher.  So I guess I'll start looking online / reading up on how to increase my pedal cadence.  My guess is I will do it by doing rides in easy gears, but maintaining a high cadence to get my legs used to the higher cadence, but I'll look around to try and find out from someone more knowledgeable than I am.