In Or Out?

Decision... decision... This weekend's weather was so not cooperating for outdoor training. Since last Monday, I kept checking the weekend weather. Most likely it was going to rain but the question was how hard. I don't mind a little drizzle. The temperature was going to be around 50's anyway, so that wasn't too bad. If it's 30's and wet, then it's a different story. After emailing Sarah and Susan on Friday, we decided to go ahead and ride in Brookhaven. I went there for Wed night run several times but had never been there for a ride. I was fine with the plan. It was a 10 mile loop, so at least, if it was pouring, we could end the ride early. 

I woke up on Saturday morning and I heard thunder. I thought that was good, let it rain hard now and hopefully it was going to die down a little bit by the time we went out. That thought changed quick after I watched Channel 11. It was worse than what I thought. They had a warning for hail, thunderstorm, gusty wind... on and on and on. I wanted to ride outside but didn't want to get stuck in a bad weather. Finally I decided to ride indoor on my new (used) trainer. I guess, the good thing is I have a workout plan. I can repeat Will's workout this week and add 30 minutes to get to 2 hours. I checked with Mary yesterday. She said, not to ride more than 2 hours on a trainer for today's ride. Great! I broke down the 2 hours into 4 sets of:

- 10 minutes steady stage 70% max HR, 80 RPM.

- 10 minutes single leg drills. 1 min L/R/together.

- 10 minutes power drills, 4 mins hills with 1 min recovery.

What's a more perfect show to watch during a 2 hour trainer ride other than THE BIGGEST LOSER? I like that show even though it drags. A lot of drama for a 90 minute episode. They started with a new season three weeks ago. I watched the first one, but since it was on Tuesday night, I just watched the end of the show after I got home from Will's class.The theme is No More Excuse. Alison, the host, asked each contestant, what got them into where they are right now. Almost all of them said no time, not enough time to exercise. I know it was true, but not having enough exercise was not the main reason. To me, it was because of food, eating too much, no self control. The ratio is 80% food and 20% exercise. One thing that I learned from the show is what you are today is not a guarantee of what you will be10 years from now. I meant, there were ex NFL athlete, former Olympian, former female body builder with 10% body fat on the show. These people knew exactly what to eat and how much to eat to maintain normal body weight. It's a reminder for myself not to get cocky, I can fall off the wagon anytime if I don't consciously choose to live healthy. 

The first two sets are pretty easy. I felt strong. The third set was getting harder. My left hamstring was tighter. I just took one potty break after the second set. Finishing the fourth set was not too bad. It was hard but it was the last 30 minutes of the workout... almost done. Chloe barked a little at the beginning. She wasn't used to the sound of the trainer. She was pretty patient and sat by the trainer for an hour, and then, she got tired of it and left. I was so happy when I was done. A big check mark!!!

Excuse the poor quality of the pic. I took it using Skype camera.

Bad ride. Good run. All in one weekend.

I know some days the training will go well and some days the training will not go so well. It's hard to swallow when I had a bad ride because riding was my least best of the three sports and I always worked hard on the bike. I always thought about it and kept thinking what went wrong. Last week at Silk Sheets, I felt so strong on the bike, we rode 40 miles, my average was 16.4MPH without pushing it too hard. This weekend we rode 40 miles at Harbins. The weather was completely different. This time it was cold, low 30's, strong wind, 10-15 MPH. The morning before the ride, I thought it was a good idea to drink just water and eat Cliff bars. I cut up 1.5 bars into 12 squares. Each square was 30 calories. Total 360 calories. Perfect... so I thought. Eating all solid food during a ride was definitely a new thing for me. I never tried it before. One thing I forgot is that solid food don't go down as easily as liquid calories. My body didn't absorb the nutrition as fast as liquid. We rode 11 miles to the school. Susan and I were waiting at the school but since John, Sarah and Carlos were no where to be found. We went back and finally saw them by the church. It turned out that John had a bike issue and couldn't continue the ride. So, we all waited for Carlos to get the car to pick up John and take him back to the parking lot. We were just standing around in the cold and chatting.

After standing around for 10 minutes, the wind really picked up and I got really cold again. We still managed to take a couple of pictures. Sarah made a smart azz comment after I took the picture. She said we should call it 2 1/2 Ironman since John and Sarah did1 IM and Susah did a half IM. Too funny. 

We continued the ride after Carlos came. This is when the ride took a turn for the worse. I had no energy, my quads felt heavy, my nose was running non-stop. The wind picked up and I chickened out and didn't stay aero since I felt wobbly. The last 20 miles of the ride is just to keep up with Sarah. Susan was a head of us. 

I tried to eat more. At the end, I only ate 9 squares, so it was around 270 calories. It was way too little for a 2.5 hour ride. I learned my lesson. Susan thought it was because I did Will's class twice this week. Maybe it had something to do with it but I think the major factor was nutrition. I went home, too a hot shower and napped. It felt so good. 

 The next morning, I braved myself and ran in the cold. It was about the same temp as yesterday.  I wore my Santini jacket.

This was my first purchase (of many) at bonktown.com. The jacket was windproof and waterproof. It was hard to believe since it didn't seem warm at all. I wore a base layer and this jacket. It was perfect, borderline a little too warm when I ran in the sun. The retail for the jacket was $270 but I got it for a steal, $90. I felt really good on the run. This is a payback from yesterday. I didn't run hard and tried to stay in zone 2. At the end, I ran 7 miles at 9.24 pace.

Happy Ultimate Cycling!!

Not much happening since Jan 1, 2012. No New Year's resolutions. I don't believe in them. They always seem to die down in February anyway. I have goals and one of them, of course, is IM Canada. The second one is getting engaged... haha. Anyway, talking about IM, we're in the middle of off-season base training. Don't let the words "off" and "base" fool you. It's still 8 hours of training per week. I know it's not a lot compared to the real IM training but still it's something. I started the year with the Ultimate Cycling class. A week before the class started, we did a heart rate test. You start with 120 HR and increase 10 beats every two minutes until you can't go anymore. Based on my HR test, my max is 198. I also found out what my zones are. Last Tue, 1/10 was my first class. I felt really good and strong cycling for 90 minutes. There were about 30 people in the class. I was debating if I wanted a new trainer or not. I don't want to spend more than $150. That means I need to find a used one. After the first class, I decided to wait a little longer before deciding to purchase a new one. I didn't hate the one that I had but I didn't love it either. The trainer wasn't stable and I'm only 100 pounds so I can't imagine if a 250 pound dude uses the same trainer, it had to feel even more unstable. Or... maybe the other way around, putting more weight on made it more grounded.

Thursday was the second class of the week. This time I noticed we had more people than Tuesday. The program lets you sign up for a once a week class instead of twice a week. For new comers, the 2 sessions per week is $250, 1 session per week is $200. I thought about it. It's so not economical to choose the second option. Plus if I want to get the full benefit of the program, I really believed I had to do 2 sessions per week. This session had the same sets/ drills as the first one that we did on Tuesday. But oh man... my legs felt wobbly, it was more difficult to increase my HR, at the end I felt a little jittery. I don't know why. The only thing different was I split my lunch on Tuesday. I ate half at noon and the second half at 3.30PM, then a Cliff bar at 5.30PM. I may have to do that on Tuesday and Thursday to keep my blood sugar more even through out the day. This time around I really hated my trainer. I felt I was going to fall off the bike if I didn't hang on to the handle bar. I looked at it from the side, it was pretty level. One time I was going to get on it, and it was wobbly and I almost fell. It was not good.

After the class, I went home and felt so hungry, so I ate a lot. I shouldn't do it but I was starving and a little frustrated from tonight's class. I guess food made me better. I know it sounds so bad... like I'm a food addict. I went online and checked Craig's list for any used trainer. And there was one. I never heard of the brand before. It's Minoura RDA80. What's different about this trainer is a rim driven trainer. The resistance contacts are with the rim of the wheel, not the tire itself, so it doesn't eat up your tires. From the reviews, I found out it's a good trainer, quiet and very stable. It's Japanese made. For some reasons, most of their make are good quality. The seller was asking for $150. She bought it from Reality Bikes around $280. She just used it around 10-20 times. I felt it was a good asking price. I emailed her right away. I know trainers like this will go fast. I even said that I could stop by on Friday night after work if she was available.

She said she was coaching all weekend but would be home at 3PM on Sunday. Great! I got cash before I left. I hope she would budge on the price a little bit but I was willing to pay $150 if she didn't.
I brought the bike with me, so I could take a little spin and make sure the trainer was stable and quiet like the reviews said. Sure enough, I took a few minutes spinning, I was hooked. It was smooth. I asked her about the price again to see if she was willing to take $130 cash. She was fixed on the price which I would do if I were her. It was a done deal. $150 for the trainer. I was excited and can't wait to use it on the next class.