Simplicate and Add Lightness

Due to my ongoing knee pain…it’s certainly improving, but I’m not going to push things too hard and make it worse in the long term…I’m going to start to reshuffle my goals.

The focus is going to move to the bike (and I might even take this opportunity to start swimming…maybe) and work on building endurance and speed.

I ordered a couple of new cogs for my cassette to give me the ratio change I’ve been talking about as well as a new chain and a pair of roller bearing pulleys for my rear derailleur.  Once I get the new drivetrain assembled I’ll be in a good position to start on a bike plan.

Up until now I’ve been trying to blend running and cycling training together.  A change to just the bike will be ok for a few months and will give my knee a break.  I think the races I had planned in the next month will have to slip, but maybe the series that starts 2 months out is an option!

Week 2 plan…

Some weights may be added to this as and when possible.  Abs, pushups and pullups will also be additional, as will the bike commute.

I decided that last night would be a good night to wear the Garmin to bed again (I do so like it!) and check my resting HR…nice to have it handy right at the point when you wake up, rather than doing it the old fashioned way.

1. I got 10:40 of sleep…10 hours and 40 mins!  That’s a heck of a result!
2. Average HR 44
3. Max HR 82
4. Low HR 36
5. Resting HR (just at the time I woke up) 43
6. There were extended periods below 40
7. Looks like reception was lost in some sleeping positions
8. (There was also a major thunderstorm rolled through in the night)

It’s Tuesday and the continuing karma sutra featured “keep your head up your ass and spin!”.

Meaning I’m still discombobulated (assuming I can spell it) and did spin class this morning.

I didn’t have the drive to fix my tire last night, so decided to drive in this morning.  It’s so long since I’ve driven to the gym that I kinda forgotten all the steps required to be prepared for gym and work…

Everything seemed to be going ok until I actually got to the gym.  Walking back to the changing room I realized I’d forgotten my water bottle (these days I’m using the one I carry on my bike)…and the smallest bill I had was a $20…the water bottle machine at the gym won’t take anything but $1’s or $5’s…that didn’t help my psyche.

I got to the changing room, got my shoes out to find that I did, indeed, have my bottle…didn’t really help my brain, but did help my body stay hydrated.

The class itself was actually pretty darned good, but the extra weights I did yesterday were certainly felt…ouch…sore shoulders and quads!

I also forgot to pack my dress watch that I usually wear to work, so it’s Garmin for the day.  Right now I’m sitting wearing my running shoes as I’ve not gone to retrieve my work shoes (I leave them where I store my bike during the day…).

Fun fun fun!

Workout:

• Type: General Cardio
• Date: 12/01/2009
• Time: 05:30:00
• Total Time: 1:02:00.00
• Average Heart rate: 140
• Max Heart rate: 172
• Calories: 559

Well, running after cold turkey…something similar isn’t it?

I headed out this afternoon for a run with the aim of running my loop with a new personal best time and the sub-goal of that of setting a new personal 5k mark (since the loop is a shade over 5k).

In all honesty it’s not the best run to do on Black Friday…too much traffic at the intersections to disrupt any mojo ya got going!

With that said I did beat my personal best time for the loop by 31 seconds and took about 40 seconds off my 5k time…now sub-20 mins!! Can you say WOOOOO–HOOOOO

It’s taken me the last 15 minutes or so to recover and not feeling like I’m about to die…Woohoo wasn’t coming out of my mouth when I finished…in fact cold turkey was closer to exiting…

I went through the 5k point in 19:45 which translates to about 6:22/mile pace. Clearly I slogged the last bit of the loop a little bringing my average pace down to 6:28/mile.

I’m pretty encouraged by this actually since I’ve not been doing a lot of running and certainly nothing beyond maintenance running…speed work and endurance building isn’t actually planned until the New Year.

I had been doing some goal setting and training planning for 2010 (a work in progress) and had set the goal of running 5k in 19:30 by 3/14/2010. That seems perfectly doable now!

Once I’ve got my training plan put together for 2010 I should post my goals…might help push me to achieve them.

Workout:

• Type: Run
• Date: 11/27/2009
• Time: 16:18:42
• Total Time: 00:20:48.52
• Average Heart rate: 166
• Max Heart rate: 186
• Calories: 368
• Distance: 3.22 miles
• Average Pace: 6:27.93/mile
• Max Pace: 5:18.58/mile
• Ascent: 473.89 ft
• Descent: 528.3 ft

There’s a restaurant type place nearby with a sign in front of it advertising “Fat Boiled Crabs”.

Is that a fat crab that’s been boiled?

or:

A crab that’s been boiled in fat?

If it’s the first option, do crabs get their feelings hurt if they’re called fat?  If they do, would they say “I’m not fat, I’m big exoskeletoned”?

Apart from the traditional things to give thanks for, today was Thursday and that means it’s the day I weight myself and take body fat readings.

This morning I officially recorded the lightest I ever have (ok, since I was 13 I think) at 170.8lbs.  The BF reading came out at 12.7% but, as noted before, the Omron hand body composition units give guidelines only…nothing totally accurate.  As far as I know though it does give decent relative readings…so if I’ve gone down 1% according to the monitor then I probably have gone down that…it might just be 15 down to 14 rather than 13 down to 12…who knows?

Today is not really going to be a day for much in the way of aerobic exercise, but I did stick my abs routine in this morning.

I’ll go for a run or a ride tomorrow at some point, maybe even to the gym if the place is open.  The forecast for tonight is temperatures down to freezing…meaning a run won’t be at the crack of dawn!

There are also some tasks lined up for tomorrow work on the car.  I have new bits to install…new front sway bar and a short shift kit.  Should improve handling and shift performance (both of which are a bit scarily good as it is)…I’m looking forward to it 

Happy Thanksgiving All!

Ok, so it’s been a long time since I posted anything…many moons to be honest (April maybe?).

In the meantime the company I was with filed chapter 11 (yes, again) driving another long distance move.  This one feels like a good one though (the last didn’t).

Anyway, cutting a long story short, I’ve moved from the north east to the deep south - Louisiana to be exact.

Even though I’ve not posted anything in a long time I’ve still be keeping myself busy in the gym.  During the past 6 - 8 months I’ve average an hour a day for 4 days a week in the gym…not too bad, but not much direction to it all.

Since the move the average has gone up to about 5 days a week and I’ve been able to get some time in on the bike.

During my time in CT I got about 50 miles in on the bike, all over the course of about 3 weeks.  Since making the move a couple of months ago I’ve put in about 120 including the longest ride of my life…then the next weekend I went further.

Until this move my previous longest ride was 37 miles back in the days when I was at university in Scotland.   About 3 weeks ago I pushed it out to 42 miles on a seriously windy day where I shouldn’t have even been on the bike.

The following weekend I put in 61 miles on a much nicer day.  The wind was still up, so my average was only about 18mph, but that was a good long ride.  Since then I’ve not been out at all.  I had the flu for a week followed by Christmas related activities.

So, what’s going on now?  Well it’s new year and time for a new goal!

The goal is a Duathlon which is happening in early March.  2 mile run, 10 mile bike, 2 mile run.  I know it’s not a lofty goal, but I need to start somewhere.

Ok, that’s the end of the update for now…more to follow.

Laters