I’ve been on Power Cranks sporadically for several months, mostly due to a new baby and no training time, but I commute on them during the week. Although it’s a very short commute, I’m pretty comfortable on the cranks and have gotten over the initial pain. I’m ready to pick-up my training and will likely do a few Olympic distance races with what remains of the season.
Assuming you’re training the same amount as before Power Cranks, are you using Power Cranks in place of regular cycling, running or both? What if you had significantly less training time, how would you divide your training? (Assume bike and run results were equivalent pre-PC.)
It seems you have reasonable endurance now and will be restricting your racing to Olympic distance or shorter races. You want the most bang from your very limited time buck.
This is my recommendation. Continue with your swim schedule and take about half of your now scheduled run time and use it to ride the bike. Take that time to ride the PowerCranks at high cadence (or as best you can) as I think this would best give good run benefit while you are still working on your bike.
This is the same advice Dr. Day gave me almost 1.5 years ago…it’s sort of disconcerting NOT to run as much, but, the advice worked for me…even for a stand-alone 1/2 marathon! I didn’t run further than 8 miles at any time, nor more than 15 miles in a week, and still ran a good bit faster than I thought I could. PowerCranks also allowed me to train through an achilles heel injury (brought on because of a crooked heel counter in a shoe) when I couldn’t run at all for a while, and when I came back to running, I set a few PR’s. Even now, on my “Long Run Day”, I’ll sit on the trainer on PowerCranks for a while to warm up, and, often, to cool down.
I am still not convinced that I want to race on Powercranks. I have been using them over 3 months now and have only used normal cranks for a week during that time. IMO Powercranks are perfect for training, but I am not sure I want to use them during a race. There are a few reasons for this.
First, my Powercranks are on my road bike and I race on my Tri Bike, so I would have to switch out the PCs and that is sort of a pain. Second, I still climb better on normal cranks out of the saddle than I do on PCs. Third when you switch over to normal cranks after training with PCs, you just feel faster.
All that said, I feel PCs have really helped my running this year. So far I have done 4 road races and placed 14th, 2nd, 1st and 3rd overall. My running times are just 10-15 seconds slower per mile than my fastest times ever. Oh and this is on less than 20 miles per week running with the occational 30 mile week.
My first Triathlon of the year is coming up in two weeks, so that will be the big test. I will be racing on normal cranks.
Yesterday though I did break away in a double A ride using my PCs. That is only the 2nd breakaway in the double A ride that has occured this year. I stayed away for 4 miles before the pack caught me at a light.