The regular instructor was on vacation making for an interesting time with the stand-in. Not a bad time, just interesting.

Workout:

• Type: General Cardio
• Date: 01/06/2009
• Time: 05:30:00
• Total Time: 1:05:00.00
• Average Heart rate: 142
• Max Heart rate: 174
• Calories: 592

Well, this morning was back to it.

As a side note I’ve set myself the goal of riding 2000 miles on my bike this year. I’m not keen on the slow start, because I know the summer will be slow due to heat…I don’t think either will cause major issues though.

Workout:

• Type: Run
• Date: 01/05/2009
• Time: 06:30:00
• Total Time: 00:15:00.00
• Average Heart rate: 165
• Max Heart rate: 170
• Calories: 196
• Distance: 1.5 miles
• Average Pace: 10:00/mile
• Max Pace: 8:59.73/mile

I had a sore big toe this morning so decided to give spin class a miss, even though I got myself up at 4:40 to be ready in time. Once my toe was feeling a bit better - after a pot of coffee! - then a good ride was on!

Maintaining a good average is tricky with all these stops signs, red lights and cars you find on the road. I did keep about 22mph for 6 or 7 miles though which was encouraging…before a stop sign rudely interupted and threw off my groove!

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 12/30/2008
• Time: 12:00:00
• Total Time: 3:03:00.00
• Average Heart rate: 146
• Max Heart rate: 173
• Calories: 2864
• Distance: 52 miles
• Average Speed: 17.05 mph
• Max Speed: 26 mph

I’ve been trying to mix it up a bit, but haven’t got into a good groove yet since the move, with straight cardio 2 days a week (morning spin class) and the other 3 days being about a 60/40 split of weights/cardio.

Since I’m off work this week I had a bit more time than normal so tagged some extra cardio on at the end. The beginning and middle wasn’t any new, but the end was a bit different to what I normally do.

I started out with 25 mins on the eliptical thing (Precor Adaptive Motion Trainer to give it the fancy name) keeping my heart rate right at 130. Then was about 30-35 mins weights - back, shoulders and arms today.

Finally I decided to do some running on the treadmill. I’ve never been a fan of running and generally don’t do much of it but with my plan to do a duathlon in a couple of months I figured I better get my a$$ in gear and get used to doing some.

This is where things get interesting. I’ve given some thought to the distances involved in the duathlon, 2 miles running, 10 miles cycling, 2 miles running and figured that sounded like about an hour, not including transitions.

Then I started to think about what that meant. 10 miles @ 20mph on the bike is doable, especially given the flat roads round these here parts, giving 30 mins biking. That meant the 4 miles of running would take up the other 30 mins.

For someone who does a lot of running a 7:30/mile pace is probably nothing impressive, but I don’t do much running. This morning I did 1.5 miles at 9:00/mile pace and that was not as easy as I had hoped. Either it’s time to rethink my goal, or work a the running part to get my speed and endurance closer to where I want to be.

TBC…

Workout:

• Type: General Cardio
• Date: 12/29/2008
• Time: 05:30:00
• Total Time: 1:15:00.00
• Average Heart rate: 130
• Max Heart rate: 172
• Calories: 682

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

Me…

Went riding when the aforementioned weather kicked in!!

There had been a bit of a sprinkle of rain and a rumble of thunder while I was getting the bike ready. It looked like the weather had gone by a bit east of where we are…alas I was wrong.

I got about 3 miles out when it started to rain a bit. By 3.5 it was down to 100ft visibility…the last 0.5 mile was trying to find sound shelter, preferably a properly grounded shelter.

First ‘real’ ride on the bike this year ended being cut well short.

Fun fun fun.

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 06/08/2008
• Time: 15:00:00
• Total Time: 00:12:00.00
• Distance: 4 miles
• Average Speed: 20 mph
• Max Speed: 28 mph