I took two days off after the big climbing day this week. First one was intentional, second was because I was lazy. Usually, if I just start getting changed, get my heart rate monitor on, my shoes, helmet, etc I can build that momentum and get going. Not Thursday. I gave in.

Friday was a decent ride. I’m starting to figure out that pedal cadence has much greater impact on my heart rate than the difficulty of the pedal strokes. Basically, I am not a high RPM Yamaha R6 engine. More like a diesel truck. So that’s an adaptation I need to work on. Not surprising, though, with the emphasis over the last several years on lifting heavy (for me) things.

I also felt a calf cramp coming on a few times, which is weird because I’ve never dealt with cramping in exercise before. I had started to work on increasing my pedal cadence, so maybe that had something to do with it. I will get a calf cramp if I’m stretching in bed first thing in the morning and point my toes down (plantar flexion for my nerd friends). I am taking a relatively high dose of Methyl Folate, which can cause cramping, so maybe I need to cut down on that some.

This was my fastest average speed this year at a little over 15mph. I took a little detour though, and ended up on pavement for a couple miles, which felt markedly faster than the gravel road around the Arsenal Wildlife Refuge.

Still experimenting with eating on the bike. So far, nothing has really messed up my stomach or caused a poor performance as far as I can tell. I’m starting to mix it up a bit with things that don’t have the word “bar” on the package. Found some tasty little crushed fruit strips at Costco. They’re just fruit (apple and mango, apple and blueberry, etc) and they’re not so incredibly sweet. I tried some of the energy chews over the last couple years and I just can’t deal with the hyper-sweetness, or the stickiness of them. I don’t know how people chew on those things and breathe at the same time.

Do hard things.