Increasing the Cadence

This weekend's goals are to have a good Sunday ride and to increase my cadence. We had a good group again this morning. I managed to not get passed by anyone as I went up the hill at the beginning of the Woman Hollering Creek ride. It was more than my new bike. We got fairly spread out coming out of the parking lot. We were all together to cross the highway and I still focused on getting up the incline and warming up.

Once I got to the flat part of my "warm-up" section of the ride, I tried to begin focusing on my cadence. I'm trying to get it up to 80, but for now, I'm happy with an improvement to 75. I've thought that I had an average of 70, but now that I have a hand-me-down Garmin which stores my data, I've learned that my average is a bit more in the mid 60 range.

The low water crossing was still a bit scary, especially with the rain we've had this week. As Pete begins the descent, he turns and hollers something at me. I see his lips move, but the wind is whishing passed my ears, I can't hear a word. I hit the bumps and strengthen my grip on the handlebars. I make it up the hill with less effort than I remembering it taking last week. At this point, I try to catch my breath and struggle to do so. I keep pedaling and try to watch my heart rate, but listen to my breathing too.

I begin to struggle with what I should be focusing on. I need to breathe. My coach has told me to focus on increasing my cadence. My heart rate is not falling. Erica and Phil are pulling away from me as my speed drops. I'm suddenly feeling like I'm stressing out and don't know which way to focus my energy today. Just then, I start to notice that on top of the high humidity this morning there are a number of small bugs I'm pelting as a ride on. I can feel them hitting my arms and my face. I look down at my sweating arms and see the bugs sticking to the sweat. I know... it's an attractive sport. Meanwhile, my feet are feeling wrong today. I feel like I'm trying to roll my feet outward on the side each foot, my right one more than the left.

After a quick break for the seven mile stretch, we catch up with Dad, Erica and Phil just as Tom (who started late) catches and passes us. I've calmed down and gained my composure and am now focusing on my cadence. For the next three miles, I have a consistent 72 which had me moving at 14 mph. I struggle a bit with cadence as I climb the next hill, but I'm getting tired and I know the half-way breakpoint is approaching.

We get to the pie place and head inside to cool off and dry off. I get my Diet Sunkist and lay out my gloves and Camelbak to dry. While we rest and take our turn in the facilities, the rest of our group - who started later than us - catch up, so we lengthen our stay. I decide to head outside and stretch before we head out. Turns out, that stretching did me some good. The first stretch of road as we head out from the pie place is rough and hilly. I'm the first one out and I manage to hold a fairly steady cadence. It slows a bit as I climb the hills, but I quickly recover.

I struggled again to switch from the big ring to the middle ring again as I climb the big hill in this section. I managed to keep moving without losing much speed and had to switch into the small ring since I couldn't get the bike into the middle ring. But, I made it up the hill without stopping and the gear shifting issues only caused me to sacrifice cadence a bit going up the hill.

Four and a half miles later, I was in a rhythm with my huffing and puffing as the pedals went round and round, but I needed a quick break to straighten my toes, relax my feet and clear my nasal passages. Dad and I stopped at a shady spot and took care of business. For the next three and a half miles, I managed to average a cadence of 71 at 12 mph. Looking at the graphs, my cadence and speed were fairly flat lines. That's good because it means I was consistent rather than peaks and valleys as I tried too hard or rested too much.

The next section of the route, the wind was picking up. I managed to lead the way for awhile and yet still had a cadence average of 69 and my average speed only dropped to 11.3 mph. I'm surprised to see both of those numbers so high considering the wind and that I didn't have my usual wind breaker, a.k.a. Pete, in front of me. My right calf starts to get tight and feel like it might be about to cramp. I stop in some shade and reach for a Pickle Sickle. They say pickle juice is the miracle potion for cramps, so I grab a shot before getting back on the road. It truly tastes like a dill pickle. Boy does the sodium go straight to your head. I quickly chased it with some water and then got back on the road.

The last five miles have some hills that are a challenge. The road surface is less than desirable and the highway crossing can be a challenge. Add to all of that, I've ridden 30 miles so I'm tired. I quit focusing on my cadence and just thought about the road ahead of me and the rest of the route. We had a dog come out of a yard at us part way up a hill and that made me lose any speed or momentum I had, so the rest of the hill was a struggle, but I made it.

At the end of the day, my average cadence was 67. Not ideal, but an improvement. Average speed was 12.3 mph. According to the Garmin, I burned 2,597 calories. I feel good about the ride. I'm happy about how I handled my struggles today. I need to work on less stops and continue focusing on my cadence. We have plans to eat well tonight in preparation to have a good body for a strong ride tomorrow.

Goals
Today's Miles: 34
Total Miles Achieved: 531.9
Financial Investment: $1781.14
Total Weight Loss: -0.4