Grabbed a morning bike ride

This morning I woke up before Greg and the kids (thank you, jet lag!) so I sneaked out for a beautiful morning bike ride. The cat tried to alert everyone of my departure, but I made it out the door before anyone awakened and was rewarded with some gorgeous views.

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In summer, the key to my workouts is opportunity, not consistency.

The week the boys were in summer camp, I biked over 60 miles. I’m not training for anything. But I had the opportunity. So bike I did.

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I respect the motto “consistency is everything”, but sometimes when you’re enjoying a summer with your family and not training for a specific event, opportunity is everything.  A stolen bike ride, a few downward facing dogs on the beach while the kids build sand castles, a random week spent pedaling at every opportunity because the kids are at camp.

Consistency would probably be better in terms of maintaining fitness, but the school year is around the corner and there will be plenty of time for consistency then.

I think I’m content crossing my fingers that hauling picnic baskets down to the beach and frolicking in the pool with the kids will keep me fit enough to grab the next opportunity for a bike, run or swim.

Besides. Winter is coming.

Tri For a Cure is Less Than 3 Months Away!

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Three-month countdown

I woke up Sunday to an e-mail reminder that Tri for a Cure 2017 is only 3 months away!

Will I be ready to swim, bike and run?

So little time

In order to prepare I’m ramping up my running with the Couch to 5K running program 3 days a week. I am also trying to swim twice a week and should start biking twice a week. Plus I like trying a new Equinox class once a week to incorporate strength training and make progress on my New Year’s Resolution.

A little math for me:

3 Run workouts

2 Swim workouts

2 Bike workouts

1 Strength Class

=

8 workouts a week.

How many days are there in a week again?

This is one reason triathletes often do “brick” workouts where they swim and then bike or bike and then run. It’s not just to help your muscles and mind get used to transitioning between activities, it’s because there simply aren’t enough days in the week to dedicate separate days for each sport.

When do I recover?

I’d like to add another day in for recovery. I think it’s healthy to have at least one day a week where I do nothing, preferably on the weekend so we have more family time.

Looks like there are going to be quite a few bricks in my future! Or quite a few missed workouts. Or both.

At least it’s a sprint!

The good news for me is that it’s a 1/3 mile swim, 15 mile bike and 3 mile run. I can do a bike-run combo in less time than a long run took for half marathon training. Those short distances make it easier to double up workouts and easier to successfully complete the triathlon if there are weeks where I neglect one sport.

I could also pause my New Year’s Resolution, but I think one class a week will actually help diversify my training by incorporating strength work that will help my overall fitness and reduce my chance of injury. So it’s hard to let go.

Want to support me?

Thank you for your kindness! Any amount you can donate to Tri For a Cure helps fight cancer in Maine.

Our family lost my grandfather to cancer in November. He was 81. We’re grateful for the decade he was a cancer survivor before that.

The treatment he received when he was first diagnosed with cancer gave him more time with his family. He saw me get married. He met my children. He took them for rides on his motor boat at the camp he loved so much. That decade mattered.

If you’d like to help more people have an extra decade with their families, you can donate to my Tri For a Cure fundraiser here: https://mainecancer.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&participantID=6240

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Yesterday’s swim workout

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Warm up

100 yard swim

50 yards pull

50 yards kick

Drill

4 x 75 yards (25 kick, 25 tap front then back drill, 25 swim)

Swim 

4 x 150 yard swim with timed recovery

Drill

8 x 50 yards pull with paddles, set focus each time, timed recovery

Cool down

50 yard swim easy

Had a great swim with my swim coach yesterday. Progress is gradual and slow but exciting. I’ve gone from a 50 yard warm up to a 100 yard warm up, and my longer swim efforts with timed recovery have gone from 50 yards to 100 yards to 150 yards yesterday for the first time. It’s still tough finishing that 150 yard effort but that’s 3 times the distance I used to do comfortably without a break. My overall yardage per swim session continues to increase.

I’m feeling optimistic about my goal to swim the entire 1/3 mile swim of Tri for a Cure in July (about 600 yards) without needing to resort to backstroke. I’m fine catching my breath and checking my trajectory with a couple seconds of breast stroke, but I’d like to swim the whole thing going forwards and not zig-zag like crazy on my back because I’m panicked and feel like I can’t breathe and can’t bear to have my face in the water. As amazing an accomplishment as that was, I’m all set with that and feel no desire to repeat it.

I love that I started this journey in 2012 with Couch to 5k and then continued on to half marathons. It gives me a deep rooted belief in our ability to gradually transform ourselves.

When you’ve gone from running only 30 seconds before stopping to running several hours without stopping, you know you can achieve something that feels impossible when you start.

You can accomplish so much when you’re able to say to yourself this feels impossible, and it’s going to take a long time, but I’m going to get better and then just relax and tackle next step after next step, always accepting where you are.

I have until July. I’m going to get there.

 

 

 

Great Swim Today

Had a great swim today! Learned that my trainer has been purposefully increasing my yardage and that I swam 1200 yards this week during our session and 1250 last session.

That’s over twice the length of Tri For a Cure!

Obviously I can’t take breaks every 50 or 100 yards during the Tri, but knowing that I’m swimming twice the distance of my race when I go to the pool for an hour is a good feeling.

I also did two sets of 100 swim and four sets of 100 pull buoy without panicking or stopping in the water.

And I reduced my timed 100 yard swim time down 12 seconds to 1:58.

That’s a lot of progress!

Felt calm in the water, and so happy to see this quantifiable improvement.

I have until July to swim 1/3 of a mile without a break, in the open water, in a crowd. There are a lot of baby steps between me and then, but I’ve just taken a few more and that feels great.

So I’m not going to think about all the extra challenges associated with open water swimming. I’m just going to luxuriate in the knowledge that I did two 100 yard swims today when I used to struggle and panic swimming a 50.

I’ve done Couch to 5k and then moved on to half marathons. I know all about baby steps. I love them. They add up.

I can’t wait to see the swimmer I become.

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Equinox Class Review: The Pursuit (Cycling)

This post is part of my 2017 New Year’s Resolution to try every group fitness class offered at my gym, The Equinox in Chestnut Hill.

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First of all…

Anyone else having totally one of those days? Those 10 minutes late to drop off, checking into the gym 2 minutes before class when you’re a type A, forgetting a major piece of clothing when you planned to go straight to kindergarten volunteering from the gym kind of days?

Totally one of those days.

But the nice thing about exercise is that it makes you feel capable of handling that kind of day.

Class: The Pursuit: Build (cycling)

Description from the Equinox: Precisely timed high-intensity intervals to maximize your performance, The Pursuit: Burn, is a hardcore cycling experience scientifically designed to push you to a new level of fitness.

Class length: 50 Minutes

What Class Was Like

Ok, they’re missing a major element of the class in that description. What makes The Pursuit different from other indoor cycling classes is that they display your stats on the wall for different games while you’re riding. Motivation.

You can’t always see your individual score, but sometimes you can see your bike number listed in comparison to others, and you can see the first name and last initial of those who make it on the leader board after different portions of class.

This morning’s class had 3 games.

Game One: The first was a 9 minute game split into 3 sections where you tried to match or exceed your mileage from the first sections. (Positive splits.) This requires more pacing than I’m capable of, but I’ve got a better strategy for next time. While we were riding, everyone’s bike number was displayed in a circle with a mileage trail behind it, a little like a lollipop. Each lollipop got longer as you progressed further, and your circle lit up to show when you were on target to beat your previous 3 minute performance. 1st place, 2nd place and 3rd place in the class were marked over their circles.

Game Two: We were split into two teams and competed to add mileage rings to our circles. The competition contained sprint segments.

Game Three: We were split into three teams and competed for mileage. There were sprint segments when the visual of team progress was hidden and you tried as hard as you could to be in a better team position when the sprint ended and they re-displayed the leader board. Our team was in the lead for the first several sections and then lost it on a hidden sprint and never made it back to first.

You can see below that I was 31st overall out of 32 for game one. This seems fair given the limited cycling I’ve been doing.

games

Verdict

This was great. I definitely felt motivated to work harder for longer knowing that I was part of a team. I was a little less motivated by the individual effort. It was clear from the beginning that I was going to be one of the stragglers, and pretty clear by the second segment that I’d gone out too hard in the first and wasn’t going to surpass that effort. When you know you’re that far behind, it’s harder to push. Especially with another effort coming up.

The team games were very motivating, though. Knowing I was likely the slowest cyclist on my team meant I felt a real obligation to do my best and not hold everyone back any more than my ability dictated. I felt like my team deserved my best, especially seeing the leader boards and knowing some of my fellow cyclists were putting down amazing mileage. When my team was in the lead for the third exercise, I pushed as hard as I could because I didn’t want to be the reason they lost the lead.

Will I be back?

Oh hell yes. This class is going to make me faster. I would go back tomorrow. (And regret it. And not have ample recovery time. So actually I wouldn’t.)

Know before you go

Cycling shoes really help you get more power for the full foot-stroke when you’re cycling indoors. Bikes at the Equinox are SPD clip compatible and Look/Delta compatible, but they also had cages so you can wear your normal shoes. (Don’t be afraid to do that before investing in cycling shoes.)

Your individual stats will be displayed by bike number for some of the games, and there’s a leader board at the end of each segment. After the class, the full leaderboard is available online with your username and photo if you supplied one. Not ready to go public with your mileage? Use an nick-name and opt out of the photo when you set up your cycling account on Equinox’s site.

On being behind

I’m fine with being one of the slowest people in the class, because I haven’t been cycling much lately. (Something about swimming 3 times a week and trying every new class at the gym. Time consuming.)

I’m also thrilled with my stats because I can look back at some of the class stats I entered a few years ago and see that I’ve made progress.

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Today I averaged 109 watts.

About 2 years ago on a ride I averaged 83 watts.

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I actually remember averaging in the 40s or 50s for wattage when I first started indoor cycling. Now I regularly average just over 100, even when indoor cycling hasn’t been a focus.

Tracking progress is helpful when it’s helpful

I could look at that leader board and feel embarrassed at being 27th out of 32, but instead I feel great because I’m much stronger than I was before. I also feel excited to work my way a little higher up the board this spring as I get closer to Tri for a Cure and start doing more cycling.

Know yourself. If it’ll bother you seeing yourself lag behind, pick a regular cycling class where you get your stats at the end… or choose not to track your class and just ignore your stats altogether.

It can be particularly hard if you used to be a stronger cyclist than you are now. I can’t get too smug about feeling peace with where I am as a cyclist when I haven’t been working that frequently at it and I’m the best I’ve ever been.

If you’ve got memories of the leader board that you need to let go of for a while, ride solo.

Focus on other goals like frequency, or your average heart rate.

Competition should be fun. If it’s not fun, change your game 🙂