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I've often wondered if you took Joe Sixpack and coaxed him into the same training regimen as a world-class endurance athlete, would he evolve into a world-class endurance athlete?
OK, "no way dude" is one answer. But smoke over the concept just a little longer.
First of all, why isn't Joe doing three hour rides through the Appalachians in February? Sure, he might not have been blessed with an outstanding ratio of slow-twitch muscle tissue. But then again Joe's groove might be Civil War history, or cold fusion, or fighting forest fires. And chances are Joe has a day job.
How many Joes in this world might have actually won the gene pool lottery, but never knew because the stone-for-brains junior high football coach only cared about wind sprints and the 40-yard dash? Meanwhile third string special teams Joe would be passing everyone on that second penalty lap around the field, not understanding that, unlike all his friends, he should be running cross-country.
Tiger Woods was maybe out of diapers when his dad had him swinging for the 250-yard marker. Most of us dads don't have that perception and motivation. If we did, the runner-ups might be closer than six strokes back.
My point here is that we land in different slots in the Pachinko machine of life, and as we're getting there, little tiny nudges send us different ways. Training could be likened to a series of nudges that bounce us towards the well-conditioned athlete payoff. Would you or me or Joe fall through the Tour de France winner slot? Not likely. BUT, and this part is huge, we could get scary close. Close as in win-the-neighborhood-5K-run close or earn-the-Ironman-Triathlon-entry close. 'K?
I made a couple of runs at training back in the fall, but I couldn't keep it together. So I started in January which is really too late to be ready by April, but then again I'm too old to wait another year(!) As usual I thought I'd do more than I did, but it was at least something.
I'm not good enough to have a complicated plan. So I started with a really easy one: Ride every day. I figured between my old mountain bike, the trainers at the health club, and the old Airdyne, I had zero reason not to saddle up. The line of reasoning was to go completely against my natural temperament and be Mr.Consistent, thereby shocking my body into believing it is a cyclist.
I like the plan...still. It is a good plan; devoid of senseless customization and analyzation. But January proved that the logistics of everyday life, short daylight hours, and my severe allergy to routinization and early morning workouts have conspired to puncture my fantasy of the Daily Ride.
So for February, a new, yet old idea emerges: the Long Ride. The bare minimum requirement for April is to survive contiguous 70 miles in the saddle. So I'll take a page from the marathoning handbook and revolve my life around a weekly long ride, which will increase in length every other week.
The only thing more dull than keeping a training log is reading someone else's. No one's going to be sitting on the edge of their chair waiting for my next log entry to appear. So, rather than burning precious daylight with web page updates of heart rates and mileage charts, I'm just going to throw down what I can remember about the previous day and hope that a few of you stay mildly entertained.
I spend about 15 minute putzing with saddle heights and headphones and water bottles then finally get started on one of these stationery cycling machines at our health club. It's rigged with programmable resistance and heart rate monitors, and get this, it's own little TV! How fancy.
Anyway, I remember reading somewhere that a high cadence, like 90 to 100 RPM, is a good thing when training. So I pick a "fat burning" program which is a euphemism for "easy", and get going. The program varies the pedal resistance up and down slightly, notching it every couple of minutes or so. I set the level to 8, and eye the rev meter occasionally while watching how we're going to have a winter storm on the news. I do this for half hour then bump up the "level" setting to 9. Ten minutes later I suddenly get completely unmotivated and stop. Very un-Lance-like.
Back in what seems like another lifetime, my wife and I bought this piece of exercise equipment by Schwinn called an Airdyne. The Airdyne works your legs like a bike and works your arms in an alternating rowing fashion. The pedals and handlebars power a fan whose blades are designed to give maximum wind resistance. The faster you pedal and pull, the higher the resistance. Odd but effective.
Until today it had been dispatched to the corner of our bedroom as a rack for drying sweaty T-shirts and bandanas. Well I snaked it around to a prominent spot in front of the TV and loaded up one of those National Geographic documentary video tapes that I would have never watched otherwise. I set the time for 60 minutes and whirr-whirr-whirr, here I go.
This rig works great, but forget any kind of high cadence. Nevertheless I slog it out for the full hour. Man those last 15 minutes take forever. I'm not in this bad of shape am I? The eating right thing is getting to me because the second I climb off I'm ravenous. Time to grind.
It's Friday, I'm tired, severely undermotivated, and faced with a honey-do list for the weekend that runs the length of the driveway. So much for riding everyday. Boy that resolution failed miserably.
Bad Dobby! Dobby not train. Must go slam ears in oven door.
In my twenties I took karate for about a year and a half. It was great right up to the day that I sparred with some psycho black belt who slammed his heel into my eye.
Learning those kicks and punches back then however really set me for this kickboxing group exercise class I'm doing as an old man. It's a generic Tae-Bo which can be a helluva workout.
Today everyone's back at work from the holidays and the notorious Atlanta traffic is back in full swing. I leave work in full battle mode and arrive just in time to start. Alas, the new year brings with it yet another new instructor. Instructors here possess amazingly different styles. Fine by me, routines and me don't get along anyway. This woman (they're all women) however may not have had such a great holiday, and is now taking it out on us. Well, nothing like getting your money's worth. It's not riding, but somehow it's got to count toward getting in shape.
I keep fooling myself into thinking I'm going to eventually get on the Airdyne. But my butt and gluts are so tender and sore that I can't bring myself to mount up. I do a mental inventory of what caused this and I'm pretty sure it was the particularly torturous kick-lunge-kick-squat combinations in yesterday's class that broke me. No matter, the weather's warming up and tomorrow and I'm going for a run.
Killer run through the woods today. Perfect running weather and some great tunes on the Rio. Despite sore legs I felt stronger every step. I guess soreness isn't necessarily fatigue. Weather warming up even more tomorrow. Time to get on a real bike.
Shod the old Nishiki Colorado with some new tires and loaded her up for a stretch over at the Silver Comet Trail. Let me tell you, this place is Cadillac. Silver Comet is one of those rails-to-trails conversions where the steepest grade is like 2%. Beautifully paved with rest stops, independent traffic lights at every road crossing, and security guards cruising around on golf carts.
With the sun setting, I can only get an hour in, but it's totally sweet. Got into the rhythm right off. Nothing like training when you catch the groove.
A social distraction got in the way of a workout today. Some would say I should do morning workouts. Ugh. It could come to that I guess.
The spouse works two 12 hour shifts over the weekend leaving me with the boys all weekend. Training is do-able, but a lot harder to pull off. As it turns out, I couldn't pull it off. The silver lining is that younger son Morgan (7) is still on the birthday party circuit and got invited to a swim party at a nearby indoor aquatic center (complete with high dive from which he jumped off 3 times!) Both kids are busting to come back tomorrow. Dad is only too glad to accommodate them as he eyes the empty lap lanes begging for a swimmer...
As promised we return to the aquatic center, but this time I've got my suit. The pool has two guards watching like hawks, plus the boys have two friends in tow, so everyone's safe as I put a toe in to test the waters.
I yank what was my toe from the water and notice that it is now the color and texture of a grape Popsicle. The guard swears the temp is 82, but it feels like 72, or maybe 62. Ryan would have dived in without even dragging the toe first. But Ryan is a real athlete who also happens to have a set of well disguised gills behind his ears. Fortunately he is also in Texas right now so the peer pressure is at a minimum and I gingerly lower my pale white frame into the ice floe, I mean water.
The shock eventually subsides and I swim free to one end, then breast back to the other. Not bad actually. My backstroke sucks and I hate doing it anyway, so I leave it out of the equation (remember Ryan is in Texas), so I just goof little sets of 2 to 4 laps, breaking it up with kid status checks. By the end I'm stoked on my stroke and beginning to get delusions of grandeur about doing a tri.
I made it into my shoes. I didn't make it out the door. Me not happy.
I roll the Airdyne over to the "cave" above the garage. The one upside to yesterday was that I got the new DVD player dialed in to my surround sound setup. I punch up Episode I and crank it up. Despite this the Airdyne sounds something like helicopter prop wash so the alien mutterings just don't come through. Subtitles to the rescue. This is *supposed* to be a great session but I feel flat and bail after 35 minutes.
Time to get serious. Out comes the heart rate monitor. Driving over to the gym, I'm a steady 66. Make a mental note to check it again in a month. I arrive to find every single treadmill occupied, but someone weanies early and I hop on. Like everything else these days the rig I'm on is micochip-controlled with a pretty buff graphic display of how your workout is going. Even more cool is that it picks up the signal from my monitor. The belt speed can be tied to a target heart rate so I pick 160 bpm and set the timer to let me quit in 45 minutes.
In about 7 minutes I hit 160 bpm and a "pace" of 7 mph. That turns out to be the high speed for the session. I don't know quite what to make of this, but I discover that my foot speed, heart rate, and perceived exertion definitely don't move together. Like most people I suspect, if I'm feeling strong, I'll run faster. But what happens here is that the belt speed more-or-less trends down to 5.7 mph by the end and I'm sort of trotting along. This seems way too easy.
I change shoes and move over to the stationary cycle. I set the resistance to an interval-like program. Almost immediately way-too-easy becomes way-too-hard. I sweat, huff, puff and pray for each interval to end. I feel like I'm redlining, but my heart rate peaks at 170 or less each time. The running was a breeze and this is hard as hell, yet my heart rate is about the same. Go figure. 30 minutes of this and I'm mentally cooked.
Today's run is the antithesis of yesterday. A 5 mile run in the cool January air with the winter sunlight filtering through the trees. No machinery or electronic gizmos; in fact, I didn't even turn on the watch. The trail I take is one section of the Kennesaw National Battlefield Park that has basically become my personal running mecca. In fact, I just learned today that I'm on the Cheatam Hill Connector, a rolling stretch littered with testaments to the Civil War battles fought here.
The new year's resolution crowd nearly spills into the hallway today at the kickboxing class. I really can't wag my finger at anyone because I was as slack as anyone during the holidays.
Good instructor today. A lithe, toned, redhead with green eyes who's on her game. Pam leads the class with the right mix of enthusiasm and professionalism and most seem to walk away ready to give it another go. Today the kicks and punches flow and even the hellish ab workout at the end doesn't seem so grim. In looking back over this training log, it doesn't seem like I've done much, but for the first time my body is beginning to *feel* like it's responding. Minute differences that I notice but no one else would. Yes(!)
This turns out to be a couple of rest days. I don't feel fatigued and I keep thinking I'm going to get to do a monster ride on Sunday, but it never materializes. In the end, attending to out-of-town company and other distractions win out.
The bright January sun beckons as I drag my good work bud named Ed out for a little 30 minute jog around Buckhead. Ed is a natural runner who's always up for a spin around the block. We both want to get in better shape so we agree to hit it again soon. Like tomorrow.
Later after work, it's over to the kickboxing class, but today the instructor has both the music and her microphone turned up with so much distortion that I'm sure my ears are going to bleed. So after 15 minutes of this nonsense I give up and go find an ellipical cross-training machine that's open right next to my hardbody wife (who stays that way because she, unlike me, doesn't blow off workouts). I crank this crazy rig around for 15 minutes or so while chatting with Laurie. Today is turning into a whacked cross-training session anyway, so I decide what the heck, time to do my best Lee Haney imitation and pump iron. I get in maybe half an hour when I'm reminded I voluteered to fix supper tonight. Rats! At some point in the not-so-distant past I promised myself to *ride* everyday.
Ed and I start out for another jog, but his calf cramps early on. So he walks a block whilst I kick it up a notch and run about 3. We rendevous near the end. Despite the shutdown, all my chatter about the R4R has him ready to dust off his road bike and set it up on the trainer stand. Alright Ed. You *go* dude!
Deja vu from yesterday. I hear of a new "powerboxing" class at the club tonight, so I check it out. It's billed as a slight variation of kickboxing, so no biggie. As usual, I'm five minutes late, so I find the one open spot right behind the new instructor and try to fall in. Oh my...
Throw what little concentration I possess out the window because this fine instance of feminine architecture is making me stupid. Louise: A very lean, hazel-eyed fox with a long brown mane stuffed up under a baseball cap. For nearly an hour, I stare trying to figure out *who* she looks like, while simultaneously embarassing myself to no end by stonefooting every new combination. Finally while doing push-ups off the end of a Resist-A-Ball it occurs to me that she's John Cusack, but even better looking and no Y chromosome.
Ouch.
6:00am is way too soon to be hoping the sweat pouring off your face would extinguish the fire in your quads. I've taken all leave of my senses and decided to try out this cycling group exercise class at an hour when normally a toothbrush feels heavy. Nicole, who is easily a stronger rider than all eight of us guys combined, seems to derive some perverse pleasure from beckoning us to "add two clicks and pick up the cadence!"
A "click" by the way, is how you add resistance to the Reebok Studio Cycles we're on. This 45 minute class never ends. Up out of the saddle! Down in the saddle! Jog! Back flat! Work the gluts! Add three clicks! Left leg only! (Grimace! Hurl! Pass out!) When it's finally over I meekly introduce myself and venture to Nicole that this is the most pain I've experienced in a long, long, time.
The thing that really bothers me though is how difficult the workouts are that involve the pedaling type machinery. Am I just built wrong for cycling, or am I just a weenie? Ouch again.
Rest day today, this time on purpose. I'm a little twitchy to get out but my legs are telling me to give them a break.
After an hour of kickboxing I feel downright fresh. Add a half hour of upper body weight lifting, then take it in for the evening.
Laurie's working two 12-hour shifts this weekend, plus today I'm trying to get this web site ready for prime time. It's 65 outside. Even for Atlanta that's very warm for January. My fascination with getting some outside time in on my bike dies a slow death.
Our street is one of those that loops around. As a bonus, it rolls just enough so that you get to come up out of the saddle to climb over one section. I promised Laurie I wouldn't venture far today, so I simply ride around the loop like 5 times. Nicole's drills from Wednesday must of helped because it's easier than I remember. Laurie needs cash from the ATM, so I cap off the circles with a trip out of the neighborhood to the Quik Trip and back. Hey, you take what you can get when you can get it.
The temp today climbed to 72. Is it really January? No excuse not to get outside, so it's over to Silver Comet for 75 minutes on the trail. If I caluclate the mileage right, 17 miles. That's great and all but I'm going for 70 by April. And it won't be flat like this. It's OK, today was swell.
Powerbox class featuring Louise up front. We're flexing, stretching, and gyrating in rather unique ways, but I'm into it. Maybe a little too much, I pull something in my back so badly that it hurts to inhale. Still, the jazzed attitude remains intact and I persevere. Toward the end she does her level best to cook every muscle in our shoulders, upper back and triceps with these dumbells that seem *so* light when you first pick them up. Me, I'm not complaining one iota though because maybe one day my shoulders and back will look as ripped as Louise's.
Atlanta temps hit all-time record highs today. Something like 78. Time and daylight are at a premium. I'm torn between hill repeats on the bike and a hard run. I opt for the latter, since I know what to expect. Take off through our hilly neighborhood to a new set of tunes on the MP3. Turns out to be an excellent mix (I'll post it soon.) The 35 minute run feels great, really gunning towards the end. Sweet.
Ah yes, the vast gulf between what my mind's eye sees versus what my poor legs can actually do became sadly apparent this evening. Once again I'm fighting a losing battle against the setting sun as I take a couple of warm-up loops around the neighborhood on the mountain bike. My brain says I'm going to do 3 or 4 half mile pulls to the top of what we call "King's Mountain" here in our subdivision. My legs seem to possess the snap required, so I'm juiced and ready.
I start up for the first one all enthusiastic. I alternate standing up and sitting down for 15 half-revs apiece, which on paper makes sense, and to the halfway point I maintain. The whole plan craters rapidly from there however as the incline increases and I struggle to keep the minimum forward momentum required to remain upright. About 2/3 to the summit I decide on a cardiac "safety stop", circling this little cul-de-sac once or twice before pumping it along the even steeper incline to finish it (and me) off. The pedal strokes are coming, but I keep getting this odd sensation that I'm going to pop a wheelie and fly backwards off my bike. By the top I've lost all capability of rational thought, including that required to descend without veering off into the trees. So I recuperate by doing little figure eights and reminding myself that what I've just done amounts to merely a bump in the road for the average stage race rider.
Laurie and I escape the city sprawl this weekend for the upper altitudes and clean air of Breckenridge, Colorado . The excuse for this bit of luxury is our upcoming 17th anniversary, but the deep down reason is a long overdue respite for Laurie from the nonstop grind of life with school-age kids, one of whom continues in maintenance chemotheraphy. She and her travel agent friend have planned this foray all on their own, so I remain guilt-free knowing that the selected locale and my near obsession with snowboarding are purely coincidental.
So does two days of (snowboard) riding 'til you can't move warrant a check mark in the training column? Is this goofy grin frozen on my face an answer?
I know I need to be on the bike, but I find this Tuesday powerboxing class too irresistable. The combination of hyper activity to a groovy beat, intense full body strengthening and the occasional chance to wail away on a punching bag simply rocks. OK, OK, there is the "Louise" factor, but if you're going to Just Do It, it might as well be easy on the eyes. Right?
Six hours of today spent making the haul on I-20 between Atlanta and Augusta. And back. In the pouring down rain. No room for a workout.
I rented the movie High Fidelity a week or so ago. In it, these socially arrested, but very endearing characters running an old record shop whip out "Top 5" lists of songs that apply to the current state of their affairs. Well if I had a top 5 list of best friends, then tonight was spent with two of them sharing steak, martinis, and highly animated conversation about the state of our respective affairs. The essence of life can be distilled down to times like this. The workouts will need to wait.
Jump on the stationary bike for 15 minutes followed by an hour of kickboxing. Then tear out for home to load up the van with sons Gillham and Morgan for a whirlwind road trip to Blowing Rock, NC for their once-a-year skiing adventure.
Everyone in the southeast had the same idea. Sudden spring-like weather plus a 40 inch base on a Saturday equals people galore.
My darling mother has this saying that "life is great if you don't weaken...", always said with a laugh and always prefacing one of those "holy cow!" stories. Well suffice it to say that managing the logisitics of today in my sleep-deprived state brought that phrase to mind. Nonetheless I managed to get a few little runs in on the snowboard and the boys got to have a life and learning experience that precious few in this world will ever be able to enjoy. Life is great and we are so blessed.
Tired legs and no sleep have weakened my resolve to go out today, so I don't.
It's quarter after 8 and the gym closes tonight at 10. I figure if I hurry I can get in 90 minutes on the Tectrix Bike Max (stationary cycle) and at the same time watch the men's halfpipe competetion at the Winter Olympics.
I've strapped on the heart rate monitor again tonight. On the ride over in the car, I was hoping to see a lower resting pulse than in January, but it's not to be. It's floating in the 72 to 75 BPM range. Bummer. The first hour goes really well. Spinning at 95 to 105 RPM, heart rate in the 125 to 135 range. On the telly the 20 year olds for the U.S. sweep the medals in the halfpipe. These guys rock! They're skying 15 feet off the lip and pulling 1080s (3 complete revolutions midair!) and making it look easy.
Not surprisingly the last half hour gets tougher. There's a certain mental effort to appreciating the figure skating pairs long program *and* maintaining a proper cadence, if you know what I mean...
There's like 20 women and me in the powerboxing class tonight. The popularity of this class keeps growing, just not with the guys. I'm always five minutes late so there's never a spot on the back row to hide, only those next to the instructor where everyone *sees* you screw up. Despite my best mental efforts, I'm unable to make myself invisible as I attempt to reapparate without Louise noticing, "...7 - 6 - 5 - hey, Bill! - 4 - 3...". Great. I make a mental note to myself to find some new shortcuts between work and here.
Legs are heavy, surely from the long ride last night. When you look at the clock 10 minutes in, you know you're fatigued. To add insult to injury, Louise beckons us to have a go with the jump ropes. That part's not so bad; I'm no wiz, but most days I can hold my own. But today I'm tired, I'm on the front row, I've got a rope that's too short. What else could go wrong? Enter Louise, stage right, complete with hands-free microphone and high-powered PA, "Y'all should see this guy jump", as she nods in my direction, "I don't know if I can keep up!". (Beam me up Scotty...Scotty...Scotty???)
My legs feel beat up and my left knee remains slightly tender from slamming it into hard, crusty snow on the ski trip. I opt for a relatively motionless evening and an ice cold Coors.
I'm Jonesing for a run, so I blaze the 5 mile loop at the Kolb Farm end of the Kennesaw National Battelfield park as the sun sets through the trees.
No training on these days, BUT my dear friend and running partner Andre has bestowed upon me a real, honest-to-goodness road bike to use while I training for this shindig! (You da MAN Andre!) I don't know much about it other than it's a Trek with this amazing one-of-a-kind flourescent green and orange paint job and those super skinny tires that you pump up to like 150 PSI.
Andre also dragged me to a bike shop where I got fitted up with a groovy pair of Shimano cycling shoes and Look Red Arc cleats. They say clipping your feet to the pedals in a semi-permanent fashion with these rigid sole shoes helps your cycling efficiency. What they don't say, but ought to be in the fine print, is that getting your foot separated from the pedal requires a rather non-intuitive twist of the heel. So sudden stops for rookies like me usually results a rather embarassing slow motion fall to the ground.
Andre, his friend Kristen, and I put in about 20 miles at the Silver Comet trail. Tights and long sleeves are the order of the day, but signs of a magnificient spring hang in the air.
Yesterday was such a hit that I went back today for more of the same. I'll tell you what, I love my mountain bike, but riding this road rig is like mounting a rocket. Silky smooth and just plain fast. Sort of like the difference between the sled you rode as a kid and the luge.
Racing the sunset I rode out as long as I dared, 45 minutes, then wheeled around to finish just ahead of the dark and the descending cold.
It's Tuesday, so off to the powerbox class to suffer new forms of contortion with Louise. (OK, it's not *that* bad.)
My kids were after me to make biscuits this morning for breakfast, so I pop up at 5:15 to get them started. At 5:45 I realize that I can make it to Healthplace in time for Nicole's cycling torture class. So I gird myself mentally and head out the door.
I don't quite know what's different, but this go 'round wasn't so bad. Maybe Nicole's softened a bit, or maybe I got an "easier" bike. Or, maybe, I'm in better shape? Ummm, don't think so. Don't get me wrong, it was a workout, just not something you'd have nightmares about.
The urge to run comes over me so I squeeze in 3 miles at the river at sundown. Mile two takes about 8:15 so I'm thinking this is OK. Then this really wiry guy in cycling shorts flies by, followed soon after by another runner who's barely touching the ground. He maybe weighs 140 soaking wet. I'm carrying 185 pounds on a 150 pound frame. It occurs to me that when I was that light, I would do 7 minutes miles with about the same effort.
The cold hard fact of the matter is I've got to shed the pounds to take advantage of all the work I'm doing. All the great cyclists can climb like mountain goats, and they're also very lean. If I lay off the "stupid" calories, like beer and biscuits, that should get me headed in the right direction.
I tried to go out on a group ride today. My first real venture onto the roads with real cyclists, real hills, and real Atlanta traffic. I had hoped rides like this would consist of a variety of rider abilities, and would feel more "open" to greenhorns like me. Not so. This was all bunch of gearheads with pumped thighs and matching jerseys who have probably been riding together for years. I guess anyone who joins a ride at on a Thursday afternoon in February is bound to be serious. What was I thinking? Anyway I was determined to give this a go despite my trepidation because if you want to play, you have to step onto the field.
The long and the short of it was I hung on to the back for about 15 minutes, then turned with my tail between my legs and rode back alone to the car. Physically I felt fatigued, I'm sure from the work I'd been doing earlier this week. However, in doing a mental account the situation later, the real stress, and the reason I bailed came down to my lack of confidence with the dozens of little skills required to cycle comfortably at speed with a group. If I miss a shift, or take an extra rev to clip in, or brake at the wrong time, I've got to dump extra energy to catch up. Plus, everything *seems* to happen so fast. The compromised vision in my left eye really became noticable too. Very scary not actually knowing what's on the left when you're in traffic. A little mirror clipped to the left handlebar should fix that problem. Next time, I'll go when I'm fresh and feeling confident, and also find a more easy-going group to join.
Standing room only in kickboxing tonight. Pam's up front pressing everyone to the edge, but doing it like a pro. I'm proudly sporting my SpongeBob Squarepants T-shirt that the kids gave me for my birthday and throwing it down with the back row crew.
Morgan, determined as ever, wants to run at the mountain today. He's picked some winning weather, sunny and mid-60s, so we load up and cut him loose on a well-traversed section near the base of Little Kennesaw. He does a "warm-up" run (in the new shorts of course) of about 3/4 mile down to a creek while Gillham and I walk to catch him. "Coach" Dad illustrates some basic stretches, then let him try a few 1 minute hill repeats. Granted, hill repeats for a 7 year old may be on the advanced side, but he is *so* primed and motivated. It's about the learning experience today, not really how much this one workout will improve his PR.
Actually these little jaunts are about all I need myself. As much as I'd like to do a big ride or run this weekend, the little aches and stiffness in my joints are signaling me to give them a chance to catch up to the rest of my body.
My work cohort Ed and I did an easy run through Buckhead of about two and a half miles. Later that evening I stopped by the river and did another three. Averaged 7:40 for the last two miles, which is race pace for me right now.
Punched up a "strength training" program on the Tectrix cycle today. Pulled 3 or 4 big "hills" over 25 minutes. Felt like exactly the right amount to do as a warm-up for powerboxing. Powerbox consisted of 30 minutes of punch-kick combos together with 30 minutes of Louise's special ab/arm/back abuse. Altogether a most invigorating workout.
The seriously cold weather forced me to retreat inside again today. Well maybe not "forced", but hey, there was no Nike film crew around that I could see...
All the Tectrix upright cycles were taken when I arrived at the gym, so I fitted myself into the recumbent version and set the timer for a half hour. Definitely different using these machines. Much easier on the back and neck, but the actual pedaling is harder. More of a pressing out than pressing down motion. Got through that OK, then moved to an open upright bike. Found it much easier to attain the same cadence. Used a strength program and felt really good. Maybe too good. During the "flat" segements I really whipped the crank around (115+) and my left knee began to complain ever so slightly. I wasn't about to press it, so I jumped off and made the arctic crossing to the car and back home.
Started and ended the day late, so I wussed out of my workout.
No more daily updates, sorry. I will say that as the big day approached, I got my fanny on the bike more and more. I never got good enough to stay up with the Atlanta Cycling team on their rides though. I gave that up after a while.
The highlight of this period was surely a metric century (100K / 62mi) ride I did down in Byron, Georgia two weeks before Austin called the Peach Blossom. Proved to myself I could cover the distance without coming apart at the seams. Good people behind that one too.