Kind of settling into the faster-pace, shorter-time thing now. The more I don’t think about exercise and don’t check the time, the better I seem to do, pace-wise. When I feel my endurance fading, I try pedaling backward, figuring this will use different muscles.

To some extent it must, because I feel a different burn coming on fast. My posture is suddenly very different, as if I’m skiing downhill while ducking to avoid low-hanging branches. It’s a strain to backpedal for a mere 30 seconds. I slow to a stop, then start forward again. To my surprise, I now seem to have more “go” than I did a moment earlier.

I roll for another 2 minutes, which I’m sure I could not have done had I just kept pedaling forward. My theory is this: backpedaling gives the muscles I use to go forward a bit of a break, allowing them to rest and recover just enough to give me (in this case) an extra 2 minutes. Nothing else seems to make sense.

I’ll have to check this out.

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Stat tally:

BASE:

245.5 (weight on waking)
70 (pulse, resting)
112/74 (blood pressure)

WORKOUT:

15:00 @ 59.66 RPM (avg)
180* (pulse, after cardio)
149.3 (calories burned on machine)
1,790 (strides)

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