Shifting technique December 20, 2005
Posted by clayton in : workout , add a commentToday, instead of swimming after school, I went for a 34km bike ride and a short 2.5km run (don't laugh, atleast I tried…). School finished unbelievably fast but when I saw the clock, it was the usual time, 4pm. At home, everything just feels right because I cleaned my room last night. By the way, you guys are aware of how I can't wake up in the morning, aren't you? Well, I used to have 2 alarm clocks, now, I have 3!!! And this new one REALLY could wake me up. A good 1980yen spent, it was absolutely worth it;-)
Bike ride: I went half LSD and half TT, just like last time. One thing with today's ride, I was shocked on how slow I was…With last time's TT, I was able to hold my speed above 50km for like 5min (Remember, I ride safe…I only do that where there aren't much traffic and traffic lights) but today, I wasn't able to go above 50km. I'm thinking it's because I was trying this one new shifting technique. While pedaling, there seems to be a "dead point", a point where you can't really put your strength in to move forward, I think it was when your foot's at 11 o'clock. That's the timing to shift gears. This one was a bit easy to achieve and was very useful but shifting both front and back at the same time was hard. My chain fell off 2 times. The LSD part of the ride: 16.88km, ave speed 25.8kph, ave cadence 69rpm, time 39'14. The TT part of the ride: 16.38km, ave speed 27.9kph (whaaa!?!?), ave cadence 66rpm, time 35'10. I wonder why my TT speed was that slow, I had a perfect climb in one of the three hills. I was able to keep my speed above 30kph when usually it goes down to 24kph. This is where the shifting technique worked. I shifted up one gear during the climb and when I did this a while ago, my chain made a weird noise, made me think it broke off or something. But today, I got the timing right and switched to dancing.
The short run: I didn't focus on anything, just needed to get out there with my running shoes on. 9'46, faster than I thought. I was expecting 10'30..Not happy with this because it means I'm not able to control my speed…yet. It's inevitable though, first run in two weeks.
Tomorrow: I'll go to the bike store to check my cycle computer. Is it running out of batteries? I'm afraid if I try to change the batteries, the whole memory might disappear and I'll be disqualified. 655km left to go in 21days. No swim until Wednesday.