Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Rest Week

I finished up the last hard week of my mid-season Base 2 phase. Not too soon either! I was really dragging on my rides over the weekend. It probably didn't help that I did a pretty hard run on Saturday morning.

My knee was a little sore last week and over the weekend. It didn't bother me on the bike or running, but I noticed it doing just normal things during the day. I'm pretty sure it's a result of my saddle height. I've been gradually letting it creep up again, and it seems to have caught up with me. I'll go back now and reset the heights on my bikes to what I found last year, and I bet the problem will go away. I just hate to give up that "free" power. On the other hand, I'd still like to be riding and running (on the knees my parents gave me!) in 20 years.

Speaking of positioning on the bike, I have a couple different ideas that I want to explore:

1. I'm curious about the effect of crankarm length on the whole saddle height issue. In some ways, the longer crankarm would act like a higher saddle height (more leg extension at the bottom of the stroke), but saddle height above the crank center would be the same. Maybe I'd still have the same problem, maybe not.

2. Moving away from under-cleat wedges. I have one right now on my left shoe. It does seem to position my foot better than with no wedge, but it also tends to cause my foot to rock on the pedal. I'm interested to try shoes (eg- Specialized Body Geometry) or insoles to make the correction inside the shoe rather than outside.

3. (Always three things!) Hamstring flexibility. I'm not sure that this is related to any issues I have or don't have, but I've got it in my head that my hamstring flexibility is poor. I've been working on it over the past few weeks with this active stretch, and my flexibility does seem to be improving. Whether or not it will have an impact on anything, I don't know.

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