I had planned to do two laps of this loop but 1) I got a late start and wasn’t comfortable riding in the semi-darkness for the second loop given Thai traffic and road conditions and 2) I was wrung out like a towel. I am going to go ahead and blame the heat/humidity . . . in addition to my overall poor cycling conditioning.
A cool article about the Google campus bike program.
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/04/google-bikes/all/
I want to have a meeting on one of those conference bikes.
Garmin wasn’t charged up so I tracked this one on MapMyRide with my iPhone.
Then a manual entry into Garmin Connect.
Tempo run, not a true “max effort”. Still a little disappointed in the pace.
I’ve been off my game and out of my rhythm lately. Job stress, poor eating habits, lack of sleep, general poor lifestyle choices, bad household management, you name it I’ve been succumbing to it. I’m still getting out and exercising, just not as much as I need to to shock me back into the right frame of mind.
Tonight for example I was planning to run after Sunday’s short bike ride but I got so little sleep last night and was so out of sorts today during some important work functions that I canned it in favor of an early bed time and a long sleep. That being said, I’m going to log off this particular lifestyle trap (that’s the Internet) and head to bed.
Attitude readjustment in the morning.
Went for another bike ride on Saturday. I did the exact same loop as last weekend except that at the north end of the back straightaway I extended out to the north to see what was there and then stopped at a different convenience store at the turnaround.
Unfortunately what I found was that my quiet, rolling rural highway turns into a major commercial and industrial artery about a mile above my programmed left turn. I’ll have to do some more map and car recons to find a nicer extension to this route or possibly a new, longer loop course.
This time I did remember to charge and bring my camera. The photos don’t do justice to the scenery but I’ll include them at the end to give a feeling for the route.
Self portrait (also known as the “last known photo” in extreme cases . . .). The jersey was a birthday present from Twin Six. It’s called The Brew Pub. The back has a really cool chain ring insignia on it.
Nutrition. I ran out of peanut butter so I was using a weired PB-combined-with-chocolate-spread-thing. It was . . . okay. Not as good as PB & Nutella.
Route starts out following the shore of Mabprachan Reservoir. . .
More after the jump . . .
Ugh. I have realized that if I’m going to run in the mornings – and especially if I’m going to run intervals in the morning – then I need to do a longer warm-up. Usually I jog for 4-6 minutes to warm up before my first interval. Today I did about 8 minutes and a few more probably wouldn’t have hurt.
My interval speeds were a little erratic but not bad. Not happy about that 7:39 though. I also need to mix up my hard effort day programs. I love the 8 x 400m but I need to do some longer intervals. I don’t because I hate them. Which is a very clear indicator that I’m not good at them. Which is a very clear indicator that I need to be doing them. Noted.
Also, 77 degrees is awesome. There is at least one good thing about working out in the morning before the sun is up.
I didn’t post yesterday because I’m a lazy procrastinator who lacks structure and discipline, but I should have because yesterday’s workout was great.
Last Wednesday I finished my second run through of weeks 4-6 of my push-up workout app. I planned for a max effort test after I finished but kept putting it off and suddenly it was a week since my last workout. Yikes! I’m not sure where the crossover line between ‘resting up’ and ‘losing fitness’ is but I didn’t want to get any closer to it. So I did this:
If my count is correct, that’s 102 reps. Ugly reps, with lots of rest breaks, but 102 reps nonetheless. I was – and still am – incredibly stoked. That’s the most push-ups I’ve ever done at one time. And it’s a big step toward The Goal. Super stoked.
Afterwards I knocked out a good EBEH swim workout. My chest and arms were a little twitchy from the pushups but the swim still felt good and it was a nice change from the endless lap churning that most of my swim workouts are.
You can see my breaks between EBEH intervals totalled about seven minutes. I got this by using the highly accurate and scientific system of resting for twenty heaving breaths between each interval. I thought that my Garmin Swim showed a rest timer while paused during swim intervals but for some reason mine isn’t doing it (hence the breath counting system). I’ll have to research the settings a little bit and see if it’s something I can set up.
I also like this next chart because of how crazy regular my interval pacing is. And how much faster it is than my normal “steady” swim pace, which I believe is around 2:10.
And I’m even going to throw in the technical charts that I usually skip because this time they actually show the differentiation between pace/effort/time on each length – easy, build, easy, hard. Pretty cool.
Legs felt surprisingly good for a run the day after my longest (and hilliest) bike ride in two years.
