lunch time bike share ride along the canal. glorious summer day but lots of bugs flying around. felt good to get some fresh air and sunshine.
SET
Personal Goals
lunch time bike share ride along the canal. glorious summer day but lots of bugs flying around. felt good to get some fresh air and sunshine.
Healthy Saturday! The first run to Springs Farmers Market of the summer, AND the first swim in the bay. The water was cold at first, but then wonderful. Convinced L. to get in. The trick is to go under, and then swim hard for at least 10 strokes so your body warms up before it has a chance to register the cold....
Friday morning run by the river. It rained hard on Thursday night, and everything was washed clean. On the path by 12th Street, a family of geese has taken up residence. They've been there for several weeks now, and they were there Friday morning: A mother goose and two goslings, calmly napping on the walking path. At first they drew crowds of ogglers: Dad's armed with smartphone cameras, and toddlers approaching uncertainly. Now the geese are sort of the new normal. They just live on the path, and people walk by them...or do situps and pushups nearby, as the case may be. Count it.
Image:
http://bit.ly/17VQbsR
Back to work close to the canal so went for a longish run during lunch. Perfect weather, cool and cloudy, and I felt very motivated after Sunday's food fest. Ran almost 4 miles in 42 min with minimum stops for traffic and one breather near the end. Not fast, but I got the job done. I'm thinking a lot about going for a 10k in the fall. I will need a real training plan for that. Random running will not be enough to get me there.
Week 7 of training started today. I can't believe it. The triathlon is less than 4 weeks away. OMG. Today was the first brick workout which is where you do the ride and then run as soon as you finish. It was so crazy hot today. I went to Central Park and did one lap. It was my fastest lap, in 19:59 at an average pace of 18.2mph. My original plan was to do 3 laps but when I finished the first one I didn't want to go anymore. It was too hot and I was starting to feel sick. This morning I texted Anthony that Rule #5 of cycling should be his rule. Rule #5 is "Harden the fuck up". I thought of that while I was sitting at the side of the road not wanting to move and realized that I need to do at least one more lap. It ended up being one more and a bit because I missed the 7th ave. turnoff and the others one were one way entering the park. The next exit from the park was 72nd St. So I got about an extra mile in. Finished my ride at school but couldn't exactly run right off the bike because I had to lock it up and go inside to change into my sneakers. It took about 5 minutes to do all that but then I was out for a run. The training guide said to run 10 minutes today and add 3 minutes each time. I went for a run that I thought would take at least 10 minutes but I went too fast because when I got back it was only 9:18. That was 1.13 miles. It was exhausting. It felt like one of the hardest things I ever had to do. Anthony says by the time of the triathlon it will feel like cake. I doubt that, but he says he's trained people for triathlons that have a tenth of the ability that I do. I don't know. I went back inside school to get my stuff and when I got outside it was pouring! It was not supposed to rain today. It was so strange. But I had to get to the gym in time for yoga so I went in the rain, got soaked, and just when I got to the gym the rain stopped. Yoga was good. I was afraid it would be a disaster. I did have some trouble with the balancing but overall it was a good stretch.
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. —Winston Churchill
Woke up early to pee and then realized I needed to get out in the garden before the rain started, again! The backyard deck is finished, the new plants are in the ground and the table has been sanded and oiled. Ate both meals out today. Brunch for the kids bday breakfast and dinner for the mans fathers day. My credit card and stomach are bulging. I hate eating out. Waste of money and calories.
Quick gym workout while the kid was at a party. Ran a 5k on the tread in 31.5 min. The tread was programmed in km so I had to guess at my speed. I think that amde me run faster than normal. The gym was also warm so I sweat buckets. Plus there were some really cute young guys close by for motivation. My usual gym is a women-only location so no eye candy.
Lunch time bikeride
It was a pretty lazy morning. I knew today was running day but I didn't want to run so I kept pushing that off. At some point though it felt like it was going to rain really soon and I realized that I didn't do any exercise today and if I didn't go for a run then I probably wouldn't do it all today. So I went. 4.5 miles. My longest run since the half marathon. It took 43 minutes because I walked for the first 6 or 7 minutes. I got home, stretched, and did my situps and pushups.
Friday: The wind woke me up at about 6am. It sounded so strong and I didn't know what to do about biking. I did end up riding and I learned to not trust the sound of the wind outside my window because it really wasn't too bad. I started at Crunch gym, ran a mile on the treadmill then did a little workout of pullups, situps, pushups, squats with shoulder press on bosu, chest press, and triceps. Then went swimming. I didn't have a lot of time for it so I only did 800m. Later when I went back to Crunch to return the towel I borrowed I bumped into CJ. Remember her? I think we should have a SW meetup again. I walked out of the gym and got ready to bike home when suddenly it started pouring. I just sat there with my bike trying to decide what to do. I didn't really want to bike home in pouring rain. After a couple minutes it slowed down and I thought maybe I would go but then it started up again. At that point I decided to just take the subway. Walking half the block to the subway I was already soaked. I was waiting to go through the turnstile because my bike doesn't fit through and I would need to leave it and open the door to take it in with me but there was a guy just lurking around and kind of watching me and I was afraid if I left my bike he would take it. While I waited the rain cleared up and the clouds started parting and it was ok the ride home. Yay.
I got lucky and managed to stay dry most of the day. It did rain a little on my way in to the city but most of the rain happened while I was indoors. Until at the end of the day, I stopped at a concert in Prospect Park (I have lived here for 14 years and this is the first time I actually went to one of those), it started pouring and I got soaked and tried to wait out the storm (the concert still went on) but at a certain point it stopped being fun and I just wanted to go home. Except the only way to get home was by bike. It was a really fast bike ride home and I was freezing. Other than biking I did go to the gym in the morning and tried to do a run but after a mile and a half I got bored.
Woke up aching all over but still went to 9am body design class, half step/half sculpt.
This morning feels like forever ago. I was up at 6:30am because I wanted to go for a long ride before class but it took me a while to get out of bed so I didn't leave my house until 7:30am. Made a quick stop at school to drop off my stuff and started my ride to NJ. Someone (I can't remember who) once told me that they take 10th Ave. up to the GWB instead of the West Side because it's less crowded (no runners and people pushing strollers and things like that) and you don't have the big hill leading up to the bridge. What they didn't tell me is that 10th Ave. has an insanely massive hill from about 126th to 135th St. And of course today was super windy and a huge gust of wind came blowing in my face just as I was trying to push my way up the hill. I got a little lost finding the way to the bridge because the signs weren't too clear and then I started getting nervous that I might be late for class. I thought about not crossing the bridge but then I figured I was already there so what was the point of turning around now? I went across the bridge and turned back around at the end. I made it to class just in time. Later I went to the gym to work on legs. Anthony says that's the only way I'll get stronger and faster. I made a little circuit for myself-pushups, situps, run, legs, then went through it again.
finally some sunshine! 3 hours of working on the new backyard deck in the morning, levelling soil and spreading bags of crushed rock for the base, each bag weighs 66 lbs and I had 4 bags to deal with. My afternoon break was at the gym for my annual free trainer session. My goals for the coming year are to be able to do 1 pull-up and to run a 10K in the fall.
Of course the trainer wants to sell me private sessions, and we have another meeting to discuss that next week before I leave on vacation. I'm tempted to work with a trainer since I've never done that before, but $$$. She suggested 8 sessions / $50 each to get me ready for my 10K. Now I have to crunch the numbers.
After gym I did another 2 hours in the garden, more digging of dirt. I'm done, finished, kaput.
Yoga on Monday did not include pullups, situps, or swimming. BUT, it was a workout. Count it.
I commit to 1 Drinks per day for 1 day.
"The Combat Swim Stroke (CSS) is a relaxing and super-efficient variation of the side stroke, developed by and taught to the United States Navy SEALs. The CSS is a mix of sidestroke, freestyle and breaststroke. It allows the swimmer to swim more efficiently and reduce the body's profile in the water in order to be less likely to be seen during combat operations if surface swimming is required." ~ From Wikipedia
In this video, a coach breaks down this swimmer's CSS for the viewer. Note: it helps to be very tall.
1800m swim! It was a great morning. I like when I give myself a slightly easier goal and then exceed that. It makes it feel so much better. Until now my longest swim was 1500m, the triathlon distance. But the training plan says to aim for an 1800m because at the triathlon you end up doing more than the actual distance. So today I decided to try for 1600. Without really thinking about it I went right past that for 1800m. It wasn't the easiest swim, about halfway through there was a lot of water in my ear that I couldn't get out and it was bothering me and I got a cramp in my foot at some point, but I kept going and it felt so good when I was done. In the elevator on my way to class a classmate asked what I did today. I told him about the swim and he wanted to know how many laps that is. When I said 72 everyone in the elevator gasped. Suddenly I was the topic of conversation and everyone was looking at me. Later I went to TRX. We did a lot of new things today. My arms felt kind of tired.
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