Posts are getting few and far between, and it looks as though my cycling will be, too. This past Thursday night I was cornering hard and didn’t pay attention to some sand/gravel. Result: some broken ribs and a bruised ego. On a good note, while I haven’t been riding, I also haven’t been eating much as it is difficult to get food down other than in very small quanities. Here’s hoping to a quick recovery, although most of what I’ve read suggests 1+ months :(.
It’s been a while since my last post, and it seems like my cycling has also suffered. Last week a friend of mine had an appendectomy and required a lot of help, with me driving her around town in the cager. As a result, I only got in about 50 miles cycling (short of my weekly 70 mile goal). Long story short, I’ve been making excuses, and not getting on the local Rails-To-Trails for my High Intensity Interval Training. My friend is since better, and is able to drive herself around now, but I still find that the only riding I’m doing is my normal commuting and errands. I need to find my motivation again. I still really enjoy cycling and have not once taken the car out unless it was to ferry my friend around, but I just don’t feel the motivation to get out on the Rails-To-Trails and put in 2-3 hours like I was. On a more upbeat note, just the commuting and everyday cycling that I do in lieu of driving a car gets me more than an hours worth of activity per day.
Yesterday I fit in an easy ride, going 13 miles to one of my favorite meditation spots (has a bench, waterfall, lots of birds, trees, etc.) and back. Afterwards, I returned to the office and uploaded the trip to Garmin Connect. Unfortunately, when I left the office to go to mass (an 8 mile round trip), the dang Garmin wouldn’t even turn on. This is the first trouble that I’ve had with it (with over 400 miles already logged), but I hate that it happened when I was about to log 8 more miles, bringing my weekly total up to 79 miles. I’m hoping it was just the battery, as I charged it this morning and it seems to be working fine now (knock on wood). Alas, though, the miles from my commute to mass and morning commute to the office are lost forever :(.
When yesterday’s HIIT session started, I thought it was going to be a great one… I hit my first high intensity interval with good speed and invigorated after 3 days of not being able to work out. Unfortunately, things went downhill from there. It just seemed like, no matter how hard I pushed myself, I wasn’t able to get as strong of an interval.
I guess that’s what happens when I slack off for 3 days, with barely 12 miles during that time. It also might have something to do with my mood/energy level lately. I’ve noticed that I’m more fatigued during the day, and often want to sleep in (which is normally extremely rare for me). With some recent weight loss, I think it might be my body’s way of trying to get me to conserve energy.
On a positive note, I finished the workout and logged about 25 miles yesterday, leaving me with ~10 miles left to get today for my weekly goal of 70 miles.
As predicted in my last post, the weather around here has taken a turn for the crazy. Today is the first day I’ve seen a 5-minute interval without rain. Consequently, I haven’t fit in any workouts since my last HIIT on Tuesday. Tomorrow, I’m hoping, will have nicer weather. Between Saturday and Sunday, I’m hoping I can sneak in some miles and another HIIT session to come out at my minimum goal of 70 miles a week.
Commuting in this weather … has been interesting.
Yesterday I had my second HIIT workout, and it was just as tough as the first one. At the end of each high intensity interval, I feel like my lunch is about to make a reappearance. It is kind of fun, though, to be going so fast (well, fast for me). This time, because I wanted to get some miles under my belt, I decided to do HIIT towards one of my favorite meditation spots, spend 30 minutes resting, and then have an easy Zone 1 trip back. The total workout came out to 20 miles, which is what I was aiming for.
Commuting wise, I’ve figured that my commute makes up only 10% of the total miles I ride each week… I’m really starting to wish I lived farther away from work, because I don’t have the dedication to force myself into a longer, roundabout trip as it is, haha. Oh, and this afternoon should be an interesting commute… Looks like I’ll be riding through this:
Incoming storm
I didn’t work out on the Trace yesterday, but I did get some miles in just by commuting and running errands. Today, however, I planned to fit in my first High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) as described in the article I linked in my last blog post. Here are the results, a la Garmin:
Heart Rate during High Intensity Interval Training
I think it’s a neat graph to look at, conidering how prominent each of the 7 “high-intensity intervals” are. It’s funny, too, how during these high-intensity intervals, where my heart rate is approaching it’s “Maximum Heart Rate,” my speed is barely approaching Lance Armstrong’s AVERAGE during some legs of the Tour de France, haha!
You can see that I had a 15 minute warm-up at the beginning, along with a 15 minute cool-down at the end. In between the high-intensity intervals, I kept my heart rate in “Zone 1” (around 120 for me), aka the “fat-burning zone.” Each interval lasted 30 seconds (which seemed like forever!), and the rest periods in between were 5 minutes.
