Snapshot of this week’s ideas:  MAF training tweak. Workout highlight: Clip bike pedals.  Nutrition highlight: Homemade deodorant.  Words of Wisdom highlight: Talk to yourself, don’t listen to yourself

Click here for the video recap for the blog.

MAF Update:

I got tired of things staying the same, or even getting worse.  I decided to add some variety, and change the MAF experiment.  Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday’s rides stayed the same.  Wednesday, I am doing the ride in the biggest gear, but still using the MAF heart rate.  I ride for four minutes in the big gear and then one minute of easy spinning.  Six rounds of that gives me my thirty-minute ride. 

On Sunday, I broke free from MAF.  The ride was a speed workout.  I did a five-minute set of 20 seconds hard and 10 seconds easy followed by five minutes at my MAF heart rate.  Completing three rounds of this got me to my thirty-minute ride.  I am not sure about the effect of the Sunday ride, but the big gear ride on Wednesday got some results.  My Friday and Saturday rides were the best I have had!  There is something called the 80/20 rule for training.  That is when you do 80% of your work at an aerobic (i.e MAF) pace and 20% of your work at an intense pace.  I am hoping the switch to this will continue to yield results because I was pretty pumped after Friday and Saturday.

This week’s work:

Tuesday- 30-minute ride for 13.92 virtual miles

Wednesday- 30-minute ride for 15.76 virtual miles. (6 x 4 minutes in the biggest gear, 1 minute easy spin)

Friday- 30-minute ride for 14.14 virtual miles.

Saturday- 60-minute ride for 27.96 miles.

Sunday- 30-minute ride of speed work. 3 x (5 min. of 20 sec. on and 10 sec. easy followed by 5 minutes at MAF)

Nutrition Highlight:

One of the podcast hosts that I follow, Ben Greenfield, once said that he wouldn’t put anything on his body that he wouldn’t put in his mouth.  He was talking about body care products.  Since listening to that show, I have been making my own deodorant.  There are some possibly harmful ingredients in some store-bought deodorant, so I like the idea of making my own so I know exactly what I am getting.  I wrote a blog post a while ago that talks about this and has my recipe.  Check it out here.

Workout Highlight:

Did you know there is more than one way to pedal a bike?  It is true.  Most would think you just stick your foot on the pedal and push.  If you are a serious bike rider, you know the value of the pulling up movement as much as the pushing down movement.  Getting pedals you clip your shoes into helps you immensely. 

When I started racing triathlons, I did not want to take the time to change shoes between the bike and run portions, so I got pedals that had a basket over the pedal to allow the feet to pull up as well as push down.  This worked fine, but, knowing what I know now, not as well as I think it could have.  When I bought my actual triathlon bike, instead of the cheap road bike from Walmart, it came with clips and shoes.  Riding with those was a game-changer. 

Since I don’t ride my race bike on my bike trainer, I had to figure out something for that cheap road bike.  I found “mountain bike” clip pedals.  These have a clip on one side and a flat pedal on the other.  I can train, or just go for a bike ride with the family and not have to change pedals.  Win-win!

Wisdom of the Week:

This week’s wisdom is “talk to yourself, don’t listen to yourself.”  I had this thought in my head during my long Saturday bike session.  My legs were tired and I could have listened to them and eased off the speed.  Instead, I talked to myself and found ways to keep up the intensity.  I ended up with my best long ride yet.  This is the same technique I use during races.  I try to find ways to tell myself to keep going when my legs are hurting.  That positive self-talk gets you a lot farther than listening to tired legs.

This works with other things you are doing, too.  I teach my third graders to do this when they come to a tough problem.  Instead of listening to their frustrated brain and quitting, they can tell themselves “I got this” and talk themselves through the steps to solve the problem.  By talking to themselves, they can get through more than if they listened to the negative and quit.  Find ways to tell yourself you can this week and block out the negative ideas.  It will do you wonders.

That’s just a bit of my experience.  Have a great week.