.
A new thing, introduced in the last log, the last voyage.
Staying entirely within the engine compartment. Keeping all energy there. All focus there. That is, all focus on delivering energy, full extension cycle with each stroke. Maximizing the energy with in the compartment, letting everything else take care of itself, speed, cadence.
It is near totally automatic. Leaving all attention available for study. It is comfortable, not frustrating. Not particularly powerful but extremely sustainable it seems.
Could I have gotten here directly? If I fall off the path can I get back here directly? I don't know. I do know it is a very nice thing to have found, it will allow very high output in calories per voyage with maximum freedom of the mind.
Most importantly I hope to remember that arriving here was by way of the lessons of the recent logs, the last several weeks. This is a bicycle rotated back 40 degrees. In a conventional bicycle it is near automatic to remember and nearly impossible to forget that completing the full extension downward every stroke is highly desirable.
This new thing today builds on that, captures the idea of using both legs up and down to deliver power and seems to solve a multitude of sins, getting hung up on turning the crank. I can't control it. I can highly control how I just deliver power within this engine compartment.
To repeat, it is quite nice this journey those long segments when the body is implementing the idea, just focus on delivering sustainable energy within this engine compartment. Don't worry about turning the crank. Don't worry about cadence. Let that follow from the task of delivering energy to the maximum sustainable level within this space. Go slower if that's what needed. Pedal slower if that's what's needed. Your only task is to maximize power within this space. That's the only job.
The Temptations seems to be never ending to carry the habits of the prior few moments into what are changing circumstances by virtue of the grade changing even slightly. The tempting is almost overwhelming to find a way of continuing everything about the stroke that was working a moment to go into these new circumstances. A powerful antidote to that, seems to be what is being discussed above. If the focus can be shifted back into the motor compartment, and the question asked, how can we improve the amount of power being delivered, frequently the answer is, lower the cadence, slow down, slow down,. So counter to what is intuitively desirable. But always experienced as a positive. This poor old body can't do better than it can do, but it can do worse. And adjusting in what seems like a negative direction, slowing down, is just what the doctor ordered almost every time. What will enable us two deliver the most sustainable power in the motor compartment at the moment? Forget everything else. You can't control speed James. You can only optimeyes power in the motor compartment.
It's sort of like and actually imagining that this is simply a piece of equipment in an exercise gymnasium, a treadmill, a stationary bicycle.