Pedal Stroke

Discovered some new things with my pedal stroke last night. By concentrating on where the pressure is applied in my pedal stroke I found it easier to hold my core interval. Here are the comments I sent to my coach.

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I had a great workout tonight. Kept my heart rate up for all three
intervals. The best part is that I was playing around with pedal
stroke a little and found something that made me feel a little more
comfortable and smooth. I normally press my toes down into my shoe.
At the end of my rides my big toe is raw on one foot. Tonight I
lifted my toes up a little. I focused on feeling my heel press into
my shoe as I pulled back. I felt the tops of my toes push into my
shoe on my upstroke, and I felt the balls of feet press into my shoe
on my downstroke. I also noticed that it was easier to maintain my
cadence if I paid more attention to the tension in my hips and shins
on my upstroke. I think the push intervals really helped me focus on
keeping tension in my hamstrings and tonight I was able to maintain
that tension even though I was really focusing on the tension in my
hips and shins. When I started doing this I noticed I didn't hit as
many false walls. When I did hit one it was much less severe and only
made a minor change in my cadence 5-7 RPM instead of 10-15 RPMs.
Also it was much easier to maintain my heart rate. I didn't feel like
I was pedaling straight up in hill in BR 12. It felt more like I was
hauling ass on some rolling singletrack in my middle ring.