"We're Kind of like 7 11......

.....We're not always doing business, but we're always open."


Today was a pretty boring day, nothing to exciting going on. Nothing to do at work today, and it basically felt like an eternity. I'm just dragging out my remaining days in this position before I move to my new job in the middle of February. Anyway, I finished the day, came home and was super hungry again for some reason. So I grabbed a light dinner, and headed off the the gym. Tonight was a leg work out. Leg press, Calf Raises, Hamstrings, Lunges, Leg Extensions.....and then home to the rollers. I kept my leg workout pretty basic tonight, nothing too heavy, and worked on form and exploding through the rep. After my work out I came home and got on the rollers for 40 minutes. I kept it easy for the first 10 minutes, and then began to pick it up for the next 25 minutes, with a light cool down the last 5 minutes. I kept my RPM's pretty high tonight in a fairly easy gear. Mostly in my 39 x 16 and a little in my 39 x 15. My AVG Cadence was 98, and my Max Cadence was 115. Avg HR was 130, and my max HR was 146. Distance was 10.02 miles.

My weight work out was strictly lower body consisting of the following:
Leg Press.
1 set @ 135lbs 10 reps
1 set 185lbs 12 reps
2 sets @225lbs 10 reps
1 set @ 185lbs 10 reps

Calf Raises-done on the Leg Press Machine
3 sets 15 reps @ 185lbs

Hamstrings
1 set 12 reps @ 105 lbs
2 sets 10 reps @ 120lbs

Lunges:
2 sets 16 reps w/ 20 lbs dumbbells
2 sets 16 reps -no weights.

Leg Extension
2 sets 10 reps @ 75 lbs
2 sets 10 reps @ 90 lbs

More of a Hodgepodge day

Well today started off with the potential to be pretty good. That was for the first minute I was awake..then not so much. Woke up at 6:30 and felt pretty good. Started to take my HR rate, with the counting method again...and then the next thing I knew it was 6:55, and I apparently had fallen asleep while taking my HR. So I got up frantically and rushed to work, not getting my HR this morning. But I did have about 7;75 hrs of sleep, and felt pretty good. After running all over Indianapolis today, and not getting home until after 6. I grabbed some dinner and ran to pick up my HR strap, and then headed to the gym. I did an upper body, abs, and arm workout today with 30 minutes of cardio at the end. I feel pretty good, and now that I have my bike back, I plan on hitting the trainer tomorrow for a good work out. So 999,999 things done today and just one more to go.

Ultimately a Recovery Day

I woke up this morning feeling pretty good. I took my HR by finger and time this morning instead of with my HR monitor, and found it to be around 54 bpm. My legs felt pretty good, no achyness, or tiredness in them as the day went on. I was up and down the stairs today a number of times and they felt pretty good. One problem though was I had an awful headache most of the day, and for some reason could not get enough water. I drank 7 bottles of water from the time I got to work until the time I left. And still have had another 3 glasses since I have been home. MY headache is gradually going away, yet I am still fairly thirsty. I decided to take the day off and hope this headache will go away, and hit it hard tomorrow. Goal tonight, is to get plenty of sleep and prepare for tomorrow's festivities.

Carmichael Fit Test7:

Today was my second fit test, over at Greg's. I wasn't necessarily looking forward to it, but I knew it had to be done to record progress and where I am in my training. I really made sure I hydrated last night before this test. Drinking about 1 gallon of water, and plenty of water early in the day today to get ready. I was bitterly cold today, and I was glad this would be done in a heated garage, b/c the wind and cold was brutal. Anyway, I got over to Greg's, and got my bike set up on the trainer and started my warm up. The warm up consisted of 10 minutes spinning warm up, 1 minute sub max effort. 2 minutes recovery, 1 minute sub max effort again, 2 minute recovery and then 5 minutes of additional warm up before the first effort.

I got about 2 minutes into the first effort and thought there was no way I was going to be able to finish this out. My legs were burning and I knew it would be difficult to keep that intensity up. I think if you are able to zone yourself out, it makes it a little more tolerable. With about a quarter mile to go I was hurting pretty bad, but tried to dig deep and push it out. I finished with a better time and results than compared to the first test I did back in November.
Time: 7:38
Max HR 193
Avg HR 188
Avg Cad 99
Max Cad 113
Max Sp
Avg Sp

After the first test I had 10 minutes of recovery until my second effort. Which I don't think is enough time, b/c by the time the recovery was over, I was still a little dizzy and did not feel like I could get a full deep breath in. But nonetheless I was off and suffering very early into the ride. I had difficulty in getting my HR up to where I was in the first test. And found myself stuck in the mid 170's for quite a while. I eventually moved into the low 180s in my HR and found a small second wind a little more than halfway through the test. My time was a little slower then compared to my first test and my HR a little lower, but it was an improvement over my second test the first time. I did notice that in the second test, I was doing a bit of rocking and i noticed I was back and forth on the trainer for a short while.
Time 8:03
Max HR 188
Avg 179
Max Cad 106
Avg Cad 95
Max Spd
Avg Spd

Saturday Morning Ride

Went out this morning with the intention of doing just a little over an hour in preparation for my fit test tomorrow. IT was cold this morning and the wind was out of the west at about 16-18mph. Woke up a little late this morning and took my resting HR (54) and got ready for the ride. I decided to ride in this morning instead of drive, and as soon as I got out on the road, I thought I was going to need more layers. The wind just cut right through you today. One my way to the park, I was heading directly west for the first 5 miles, directly into the wind. I was working pretty hard to keep going and my HR was in the upper end of my base miles zone...about 154 bpm. After getting to the park, we headed out and I stayed up with the front group until my HR started to rise, then I shut it down for a while. Today's goal was just to prepare myself for the Fit Test tomorrow. Just before breakfast we got some wind at our back, and I hit 3 short 30 second all out sprints, with 2 minutes rest between each, to get my body up into my upper anaerobic zone. My max HR for those was 188, and my max speed was 33.7. After those 3 I shut it back down, ate breakfast with everyone and then rode the last 3 miles home. Hopefully I will be ready for the test tomorrow. Plan for the rest of the day...HYDRATE, HYDRATE, HYDRATE.

Dist: 22.4
Time : 1:30
HR Avg: 142
HR Max" 188
Cad Avg: 88
Cad Max: 139
Avg Speed 15.5
Max Speed: 33.7
Kcal 1056

Midweek Trainer

Started the day off on a good note today. I actually woke up this morning on time and I wasn't dead tired. So I took my resting HR (56). And got ready for work. Normal day at work today, no additional stress or anything, and the usual boring day. I felt pretty good all day though. I had a little back pain today, and I am not sure why, it was in my lower back and hit me shortly after lunch. But left by mid afternoon and I felt fine again. Finished off 3 bottles of water by the time I left, and headed out to run a few errands. I got home and intended to do 90 minutes on the trainer. However, I got side tracked, helping out with some homework and other things, and I only ended up doing an hour on the trainer. I warmed up for 10 minutes, keeping my HR below my 130 ceiling. Then I picked it up for the next 40 minutes. Since I have gotten this trainer, I've played around with a few things it has including the power output meter. Half way through my endurance section, I thought I'd see how high I could take the watts before peaking at my 164 base. Turns out during both times I did it, I peaked at 700 watts for about 5 seconds or so, and the second time was 689. I also noticed that my watts for the rest of my ride were higher than the last few times ranging between 235 and 250 for the most part, as compared to my 200-220 the last ride I did. After that hour I felt pretty good, but it was getting pretty late, and I needed to do some other things, so I ended my ride.

Time 60 min
Distance: 19.62 miles
AVG HR 133
Max HR 167
Max Cad 143
AVG Cad 95
Max Spd 32.1
Avg Spd 19.6
Max Watts 700
Avg Watts ~between 235-250

Recovery Ride

Got up this morning with about 3 inches of snow on the ground, and I decided that a recovery ride on the trainer would be the best idea. So I rode for about 45 minutes today. I felt pretty good from yesterdays long 3 hr ride. Although when I got on the trainer I could feel a little tiredness in my legs. I rode in a recovery zone with my max HR being 140, and my average being 124. 45 minutes, and 14.65 total miles. Took in plenty of fluids, an entire bottle of accelerade and some endurox after my ride. Stretched and iced my knees, and hopefully the upcoming week will bring good news and some good training/riding.

Saturday's Ride

I slept in this morning for the first time in a long time. Greg and I decided to ride later in the afternoon, since it was so cold today. So we headed out @ 3:00pm, for a 3 hour ride today. It was Sunny, but pretty cold. Fortunately the wind was not very strong out of the North. By the end of the ride, it had switched to the ENE or almost due east. I tried some feet warmers today to keep my feet warm. They didn't seem to be working for the first hour, and my toes started to get cold. But later in the ride i started to move my feet around a little bit and the warmers started to work. I think they needed a little friction to start getting warm. By the end of the ride, my feet were pretty warm.

Today was probably the best ride I have had since we started our base miles training. Every 3 hour ride I had done prior to today, I would get fairly tired and my knees and back would hurt by the end. I felt pretty strong going out today, and that proved to stay the same through the entire ride. My HR was low all day, even when I was pulling out front. At one point today we were moving about 24 mph, and my HR was sitting at 127bpm, which is below my base zone and into my recovery zone.

I tried playing around with some different positions on the handle bar, to try and get used to the new stem length I have been riding with. I found that when I would ride in the hoods and my elbows bent at 90 degrees, I feel like I am cutting my breathing off, and I cannot take as deep of breaths as I need to take in. Also I noticed I tend to go numb in that position with too much pressure from the seat. It wasn't too uncomfortable, but after a while, I needed to move to change my position.

Also, I didn't have any pain in my knees for the entire ride. Towards the end I had a little bit of tugging at the front of both my knees. I think its pretty evident that I have patella tendinitis. I took some Ibuprofen before the ride, and iced them when I got home. I think right now that is about all I can do for them, and hope it gets better. By the time we pulled back into Greg's neighborhood, I was still feeling pretty good, it was just about dark outside, and I felt like I could go another hour. Overall the ride was great. Hopefully I will start to see the same results on other rides in the future. Today's ride makes me more of a believer in the training I am doing, and I hope to see even better results in the future.
AVG HR 137.
Max HR 166
Time 2:54.07
Time in Zone 2:15
Above Zone 0:1.45
Below Zone: 0:38
Distanace 49.0 Miles
AVG Speed 16.9 mph
Max Speed 33.8 mph
Max Cadence 144
Avg Cadence 89
Kcal 1954

Another Trainer Day

Well today started off with a bang. I woke up at 7am, 45 minutes after my alarm was supposed to go off, that I never heard. Since I woke up in a fury, I didnt get my HR this morning, but oh well, I felt pretty good nonetheless. Running late, I had to by pass the morning coffee stop in order to get to work on time. I had a meeting this afternoon, and then I was supposed to meet Greg for about a 2 hr ride after work. Well 10am rolled around and I realized I forgot my cell phone at home. Great. I feel like something is missing when I don't have it with me. So I went to lunch, and during lunch I realized that 1. I had forgotten my cycling shoes and 2. I also forgot my HR monitor. Well this was turning out to be a great day. Fortunately my meeting went extremely well. So I got home and jumped on the trainer for an hour. nothing special just kept it simply. 16.87 total miles, including a little warm up and cool down.

Max Speed 24.1
Avg Speed
MaxHR 153
Avg HR 137
Cadence 94
Max Cadence: 113
Overall Time 1:04.23

Now lets see how the weekend fairs out. Looks like it could be pretty cold.

Felt pretty good all day though, knees didnt bother me. (THough they seldomly do only being on the bike for an hour..ususally happens longer into the ride.) Legs felt strong and, the trainer wasnt that boring. Still not completly comfortable with the new stem length. Tend to go numb after sitting..but maybe that happens when being on the trainer and not moving around much either. ANd I feel a good amount of pressure when on the trainer and putting my arms at 90 degrees on the hoods. Lot of pressure from the saddle.

Well, hopefully I'll get some good riding in this weekend.
Go Colts!

Starting on the Trainer

January 17, 2007

This is the start to my cycling blog, the intent of this blog, is to track my cycling progress and work out data.

Tonight was my first night trying out the new trainer. I got on for 90 minutes, and varied my efforts to make the time go by faster. I felt pretty good before the ride, and my legs felt pretty strong. I wasn't intending to ride tonight, but I didn't get home from work until much later, and so I decided to forego the weight room, and ride instead. I got my new ipod loaded up with songs, and set up the trainer in the garage. It's a wind/magnetic trainer, and so it tends to be a little loud, and riding in the basement was out of the question. So I cranked up the music and started my ride.

I warmed up for 15 minutes and gradually raised my HR to the upper end (130) of my recovery zone. After 15 minutes I i gradually increased my HR and raised my cadence in a slightly larger gear. For the next hour I rode with my HR in my Endurance Miles zone, and did some hill simulation and high cadence simulation to make the time go by a little faster. After an hour I cooled down for the final 15 minutes. Overall the ride was pretty good, once my legs got warmed up they felt strong and my HR remained fairly low in my zone. The only thing that bothered me, were the front of my knees, no pain, but more of an annoyance pulling feeling in each tendon in the front of both of my knees. So after the ride I took some IBproferin and iced for 20 minutes. I plan on continuing this and hopefully the discomfort will soon go away.

Ride Stats:
Time: 1:30
Distance: 25.52 miles
Max Speed: 26.5mph
AVG Speed: Approx 17 mph
AVG HR: 138 bpm
Max HR 160
AVG Cadence 94
Max Cadence 144
KCal: 1086 approx.