Training Tips

The Magic Number 90

by Katie Malone, Malone Coaching

My training philosophy has always been quality workouts over quantity. Every workout you set out to do should have a specific purpose, and you should be able to clearly identify it before you ever leave your driveway.

The Upstate is an area that lends itself to training in the mountains or at least on some good hills. If you're a local triathlete, you have every reason to embrace the hills and arrive at your next race more prepared and stronger than ever.

The hill repeat is my favorite cycling workout to help athletes build strength both mentally and physically. The perfect hill is not short and steep, but rather a longer and more gradual slope. You should be able to maintain a good leg turnover. To get the most out of your hill repeats, use a cadence sensor.

Depending on your level, you will want to do anywhere from 2-minute to 8-minute repeats. This sounds simple, right? In order to make this a much higher quality workout, you are going to micromanage your effort by focusing on your cadence. For 40 seconds you can let your cadence dip as low as 75-80 but – for 20 seconds – see if you can get it to 90 or above. You should continue this pattern until you have reached the end of your allotted time, or the top of your climb.

You will be surprised at how quickly the workout passes because you are focused on the short, quick efforts rather than the daunting effort of a long climb.

When you are finished with your hill repeats and are heading home, focus on keeping your cadence at 90 or above. After having held this effort on the hill, it should feel relatively easy now.

You might be wondering why the cadence of 90 keeps coming up in conversations with triathletes. There are many reasons 90 has turned into the “Magic Number,” but – for triathletes – the main reason is that if you can keep your legs turning over at 90 revolutions per minute on the bicycle, then it will be easier to continue with a running cadence of 90.

Although it seems to surprise a lot of long time runners, cadence in running is just as important as in cycling. Next time you go out for a run, count your right foot strike for 30 seconds. If your number is 42, then multiply it by 2 and there you have a cadence of 84. Try this at least five more times and see if you can get your cadence up to 90. Chances are you end up working a lot harder.

The idea is to take shorter, quicker steps which can feel very strange at first but, with some practice, it can be a viable way to increase your foot cadence and increase your speed. I like to call it “free speed.”

The moral of the story is that you need to focus on your cadence on the bike as well as the run. You need to do workouts that specifically focus on increasing your cadence and your strength on the bike, like hill repeats. For running you need to take some time during every workout to count your cadence in order to give yourself some immediate feedback.

Once you have done the proper workouts, you can start to marry the two in a brick workout where it becomes even more important that you hit that “Magic Number” of 90.