Category Archives: Bike

04232019 – Run & Bike

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My foot was feeling better so I decided to give it a try! It is also a deload week in the training cycle so it seemed reasonable to go for today’s workout. Today’s short interval work was a nasal only breathing for 6 x 2:00 with 1:00 rest in between. They stressed that the entire thing should be nasal only so not to push too hard on the intervals so that the recovery would be nasal only.

This was definitely a challenge! Different for sure, but to focus on keeping my mouth shut and breathing only in the nose is a whole new idea. It seemed more of a mental challenge. I was able to do it pretty well, even with a little bit of hills. It was weird to be hearing my breath and heart beat while so focused. It looks like they were all around .20 miles for the 2 minutes.

I ended up with 2.99 miles in 33:56.

It was a great day to ride. The am ride was just cool enough to not sweat too much and the after school temps were upper 60’s. We rode just over 4 miles taking the long way to the river. We checked out the waterfall and the flooded river!

Great ride home!

About 15 miles biking.

04162019 – Run & Bike

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Back on the 4:30am train… I woke up early and struggled to get up and out of bed, but I made it. The plan for today was 20 minutes of 200m repeats with 30 seconds rest in between. Getting as many repeats as possible done in the 20 minutes. I messed up the timer initially, but ended up getting 15 repeats done in right around 20 minutes. The goal was to have them be consistent time – this of course is hard to do on a hilly course.

I had one brief scare on the run. I was using an hand held running light and it swings back and forth quite a bit. I saw what I thought was a pole as it didn’t move, but when I turned and came towards it my light shone on a person standing still in the trail. He wasn’t doing anything weird, I think just standing to see what I did. But man he gave me a jump! He was just walking a lap as I saw him towards the end of the run again but he didn’t scare me that time!

For what it is worth my 200’s were:

47

52

56

1:03

1:11

59

1:23

1:00

57

55

52

53

54

I’d say that’s pretty consistent given the hills. I know at least one or two ended part way up a hill! And a few of them were steeper. My 30 seconds recovery was all walking. I started jogging when it beeped 5 seconds left.

Overall 4.26 miles in 41:39.

Then… I rode to work! I didn’t push the pace at all, but still was pretty tired. During after-school it was gorgeous – right around 70 degrees and we rode just about 4 miles. The kids are so funny as we rode along Bassett Creek they were excited about the ducks, going under a bridge, and saying that so and so lived this way. We ended up stopping at a park in the next city over and the gets were all amazed at where we were!! So fun! My brand new rider did better than some of the more experienced riders but I think a lot of them were complaining about sore butts and legs! I had a nice leisurely ride home too. Lots of people were out and about considering the nice afternoon!!

I’m calling it 15 miles for the day.

04092019 – Bike

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Another nice morning for a bike commute. I’m glad I have a reason to add bike commuting to my schedule! So 5.5 easy-ish paced miles to work.

After work was the first ride with my bike class. I have 4 kids in the class who don’t know how to ride so a co-worker and I took them out during the day to the basketball and tennis courts and worked with them. One kid was just needing the final push to do it so we just held her seat and boom she got it pretty quick. The other 3 were more at the beginning level so we took the pedals off the bikes and had them stride. One bike I could only get the 1 pedal off so she did her best. (I was able to get it off once we got inside). We really only ended up with less than 45 minutes to practice. When it came time to ride after-school I asked the girl who just got it if she was going to ride with us or stay back and practice some more. She told me she was going to practice but changed her mind and joined us. As expected she was a little slower than the group but she had a great time until we did some small hills on the way back! As a group we rode just over 2 miles to the nearby regional park. The kids had an awesome time and we did a little exploring.

On the way home I decided to spice up the ride a little bit and did some sprint intervals basically a fartlek on the bike. After every street crossing on Victory Memorial Parkway I sprinted for an increasing number of light poles before getting back into a relaxed pace. I obviously got several segment PR’s this way but still wasn’t riding super fast.

At home my little guy was wanting to ride so we did a little ride. He wanted to go down the hill but not come back up it! So we went down the Washburn hill and rode a few blocks around and found a less steep hill to come back up! We did just over a mile.

This was about a 13 mile day on the bike.

04072019 – Bike

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There was a chance of rain off and on all day today!! Good news, both kids are now riding their bikes without training wheels!! I had the opportunity for a longer ride and was going rain or shine so I was happy to get it done without any rain!

Some wind on the way out which meant that heading East I had a nice tailwind. I took Wirth Parkway to Cedar Lake Trail and then East on the Midtown Greenway. A man and woman were on my tail and passed me around the Bde Maka Ska and so when they went around me I decided to tuck in with them. We were hitting 20+ mph and I was trying to stay out of their spray but still stay close enough to benefit from their slipstream. I stayed with them from the lakes up and over the Sabo Bridge. Then they slowed down so I went around them and hit the River Road all the way back to Plymouth. Going through downtown was a little crowded with all the Final Four tourists. I hit a couple of PR’s on River Road one of which was coming up the hill from the Flats to downtown. That is a tough hill but not one of the steeper ones.

The ride was almost 25 miles in about 1:40. It felt good!

04012019 – CrossFit & Bike

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The timing was a little tight from the Winter Triathlon to needing to start a training plan for my Spring 12.5k and Adventure Triathlon. I obviously have a good cardio base to start from, but I need to get more running in for the Superior race as its going to have a lot of hills and I won’t be successful just getting by.

I didn’t want to just use the same CrossFit Endurance training plan as last year, though I ended up going with a Power Speed Endurance Pro (PSE PRO) plan which is essentially the same thing! But it is actually more programmed than what I did last year so we’ll see what happens. Each workout is programmed with notes, warm-up, strength, conditioning, and recovery. Plus a fuel section.

Today is the beginning of the T-Cycle. It will work pretty well until the end when I need to taper down a week before the cycle ends. The weekly cycle includes Strength & Conditioning x 2 (CrossFit), Short Interval Session, Long Interval Session, Sport Specific Strength & Conditioning, Stamina and Active Recovery.

The notes and videos will help along the way and there is a strong emphasis on breath work which is a big component of the PSE model. Each workout begins and ends with breathing.

So today was Deadlifts. 5-4-3-3 (135, 185, 205, 215)

Followed by a 12 minute AMRAP of

20 Kettlebell Swings 53#

10 SeeSaw Dumbells 15#

5 Hang Power Cleans 45#

I finished 7 rounds and 10 swings.

The program lists a range of weights and scaling so I probably should have done more weight on the dumbbells and cleans, but it was also the first programmed workout I’ve tried in the basement and my basement gym lacks some things! I had to do the SeeSaw dumbbells on my knees so I didn’t punch a hole through the ceiling!