(no subject)
Today was a bit of an epiphany for me on the bike! I went to the gym and used the stationary bike, since it was rainy and super-windy outside. Usually when I use the stationary I raise the level (like going up a gear...or maybe half a gear, I guess) every five minutes to work on endurance. I noticed a couple weeks ago, though, that doing that results in the bike showing me a very poor distance. Meaning, even though I am increasing gears and would be going faster on a real bike, the stationary bike doesn't account for that and my distance is pretty pitiful.
So today, I decided to stay in a low gear and just go fast, see how I could keep it going and see how the distance was. So I was going along, and then realized my heart rate wasn't going up. So I sped up, and after a few minutes it still wasn't going up. I kept increasing speed, trying to get a decent workout in (since I only was planning on 30 minutes, there being so much work and homework to be done today), and by the last five minutes I was going around 100rpm just to finally get my heart rate above 140. I think I get too caught up in "the bike is the hardest one for me, oh I just suck so much at it" and I don't give myself enough credit. Or something! It happens in the races too, I hold back too much so the last mile I suddenly realize I could've been going so much faster and still have had plenty of energy left for the run.
But here's the real epiphany - going at that speed, I was suddenly aware that it would have been nice to have my feet attached to the pedals. I hate having my feet clipped to the pedals, mostly because I could never really see a difference besides being clipped in drastically increased the odds of me falling over and hurting myself...but going at that speed, suddenly I could feel it. And I realized, when I reach the point where I can bike this fast for an hour or two, I would save a lot of energy being attached. It was actually a good idea.
Really! I hadn't imagined! I guess these cycling experts really DO know what they are talking about!