Riding from the heart

Geek confession #7: I love keeping track of numbers. A couple of years ago I did a "Ride Along" with Kevin and the second best part of the day was keeping a record of all the tickets he wrote, alarms and 911 calls to which he responded, and arrests he made. (The best part of the day is a toss up between getting a police discount at the bagel store and me almost crapping my pants when Kevy pulled his gun out before entering a domestic violence situation.)

Up until 6 months ago I did every Computrainer ride with my dearest companion, the Spinscan. It allegedly measures your pedaling efficiency with a number calculated from the torque at 12 points around the left and right pedal. I worked very hard for 3 years riding the Computrainer and getting those numbers into the high 80's. It didn't increase my speed or power output, but I had a very pretty looking pedal stroke. So as per coach's orders, I said goodbye to the Spinscan and started chasing another number: watts.

I'm not a big person so I don't put out big watts. Because I find this disappointing, I've been clinging to another number that I'm "good at": rpm. Back in the 1999, I bought the whole riding at 100-120 rpm's like Lance Armstrong is better than grinding gears at 80 rpm's like Jan Ulrich. So like my efforts with the Spinscan I worked very hard for 10 years to average 98 rpm per ride. Now the challenge is to put out watts at cadence. When I'm fatigued, the first thing to go is cadence. I rode my bike test today and in order to maintain my watts I average about 85 rpm for the last 5 min---which felt utterly uncomfortable. So maybe 98 rpm is not the most efficient cadence for me. Hmmm...

Anyhoo, my instructions for today's bike test was to cover all the numbers of my powermeter except time elapsed and ride from the heart. I'm quite sure that in my heart of hearts I'm pretty lazy and cling to comfort. It may be because the voice in my head (my mom's voice) tells me that I'm never working has hard as I could be so I've fulfilled that prophesy. For a couple of minutes during my bike test, I covered my powermeter and rode from my heart. When I looked down, the watts were low and the cadence was high--my comfort zone. I've found that if I don't have a number to chase (watts) I'll settle into what's comfy. In order to perform my best, I need to be constantly pecked and pushed (for those of you with an Asian mother, you know what that's like)--not drill sargent yelling expletives and insults, but Mommycake's stern, supportive, quiet voice telling me to relax my shoulders, don't let the watts drift downward, push through the heaviness in my legs. The voice in my head that urges and motivates me to perform, to achieve my very highest goals is hers. It's the voice drives me to produces results, to chase numbers--a voice that has NEVER said, "That's enough. You did your best." For bike/run/swim tests and even races, it's the voice I need and want to hear. Post-race, post-test I'm trying to find another voice. I'm not sure what I want to hear yet.