Mano Y Mano
I read someone complain recently that "mano y mano" actually means "hand to hand" in Spanish and that people who use it instead of "man to man" are wrong. The problem with that is it ignores the evolution of language. The word decadent has changed since I learned it as an SAT word in high school, much to my chagrin.
A bike recap. Saturday on the road where I was in the Bernardsville hills for 90 sluggish minutes. I had to really hammer out the last 4 miles to push the average up over 16 for the ride. Lots of vertical but that ride took forever to warm up, possibly a hangover effect from the 3 days off structure. On Saturday ventured down to Allaire again where I took part in a huge buzzing train of riders. I didn't feel overly good on the bike and had some mechanical problems to boot.
Yesterday I turned in my fastest ride ever, pulling a 19.5 average over 36 miles and change. I'm starting to push bigger gears at a lower cadence on the climbs which seems to keep me at a higher pace and a lower perceived heart rate and effort level. I've been trying to train at a 90 cadence but my self selected cadence seems to be more like 80 which feels better. On climbs it seems to slip to 70 where I'm happy.
This morning I did my 3x20 sets at a higher resistance and gearing but kept the cadence in the 70 range. As evidenced by yesterday's ride I'm solid on flat and rolling terrain. I need to work on higher resistance at lower cadence for race season. I also put the backup road bike on the trainer last night and tried to fit it as close to the roadie as possible to get the most out of these sessions. I also gave up on the bike computer on the trainer. Who cares how many miles you ride on the trainer? What does it mean anyway?
There is a woman standing in the vestibule of the train with a smirk on her face, a seemingly permanent thing. That must be strange to always wear.
There's a guy sitting next to me that is enormous, but not in the fat sense even though he is a bit portly. His forearms are the size on my calves.
Mano y mano, but what if it's 2 on 2? Many y many? If they're both named Manny? Manny y Manny? All named Manny? Mannys y Mannys? Or just many Mannys? What if Manny wants to fuck up a Mango?
A bike recap. Saturday on the road where I was in the Bernardsville hills for 90 sluggish minutes. I had to really hammer out the last 4 miles to push the average up over 16 for the ride. Lots of vertical but that ride took forever to warm up, possibly a hangover effect from the 3 days off structure. On Saturday ventured down to Allaire again where I took part in a huge buzzing train of riders. I didn't feel overly good on the bike and had some mechanical problems to boot.
Yesterday I turned in my fastest ride ever, pulling a 19.5 average over 36 miles and change. I'm starting to push bigger gears at a lower cadence on the climbs which seems to keep me at a higher pace and a lower perceived heart rate and effort level. I've been trying to train at a 90 cadence but my self selected cadence seems to be more like 80 which feels better. On climbs it seems to slip to 70 where I'm happy.
This morning I did my 3x20 sets at a higher resistance and gearing but kept the cadence in the 70 range. As evidenced by yesterday's ride I'm solid on flat and rolling terrain. I need to work on higher resistance at lower cadence for race season. I also put the backup road bike on the trainer last night and tried to fit it as close to the roadie as possible to get the most out of these sessions. I also gave up on the bike computer on the trainer. Who cares how many miles you ride on the trainer? What does it mean anyway?
There is a woman standing in the vestibule of the train with a smirk on her face, a seemingly permanent thing. That must be strange to always wear.
There's a guy sitting next to me that is enormous, but not in the fat sense even though he is a bit portly. His forearms are the size on my calves.
Mano y mano, but what if it's 2 on 2? Many y many? If they're both named Manny? Manny y Manny? All named Manny? Mannys y Mannys? Or just many Mannys? What if Manny wants to fuck up a Mango?
1 Comments:
At 10:04 AM,
Anonymous said…
A 19.5 avg solo is hauling ass. That's a good indicator of your fitness at this point.
I'd say that your focus on building strength at lower rpm is good. The most intense and volatile fitness is that which is required to push big gears at high rpm, so the building combination of big gear/low rpm and little gear/high rpm is just what the doctor ordered for this time of the year, IMO. That's what I'm in the midst of myself right now.
-ChrisG
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