Fun & Fitness over 50

Today, even though it was nice out, I opted to go the gym and do my "Power to the Pedals" program workout from roadbikerider.com.

This program can be done on the road but I feel it's easier to concentrate on the workout parameters on a stationary bike in the gym than on the road where you have to accommodate to the terrain as well as watch out for traffic and obstacles. Especially around here where it is hard to find long, straight and flat stretches without intersections and stop signs on which to train.

Today was week 3, workout #2 of the program and it was the hardest yet. After warming up, it consisted of 3 5 minute form intervals and 6 30/30 intervals.

Form intervals require you to work hard but not maximum while paying attention to good form especially pedaling with equal force around the circle and not just on the downstroke. These are 5 minutes each with 2-1/2 minutes easy spinning in between

30/30s are a hard effort for 30 seconds where you do about 100RPMs but then are forced down to 90 (through fatigue) in the last 5 seconds. Then rest with easy spinning for 30 seconds. Then do it over again. Your heart rate doesn't come down very much in those 30 seconds of rest especially on the last intervals.

Warm up was 10 minutes of steadily increasing resistance and then 5 - 15 second intervals of hard effort (not max)interspersed with 1 minute of rest between.

After the intervals, I spin easy until 55 minutes are up, then cool down, spinning slower and easier for the remaining 5 minutes to make a 1 hour workout.

I almost averaged 15mph on this one and my average cadence was 88. Pretty good for me. I'm already feelin' it. That means I'll be hurtin' tomorrow! :-)