…And Sometimes When Life Gives You Lemons You Break Out The Cake Form And Make Meringue Pie…

Date: Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Workout: Bike (Benchmark)

Location: Condo gym - recumbent cycle

Heart Rate Range/Zone:Zone II Hills Workout

Average HR: 122

R.P.E. : 13

Average Speed/Pace: 12.8MPH

Pre-Workout Hydration: 500ml of water 15 minutes before start of set

Pre-Workout Nutrition: one Clif Toffee Nut bar

Post-Workout Hydration: four cups of apple juice

Post-Workout Nutrition: dinner (see below)

Activity:

• 5 minute warmup on stationary recumbent cycle
• 40 minutes on cross-country hill training program, 9.75 miles covered, resistance between 8-16, 120-140 average watts at 12.8MPH average speed
• 5 minute spin cooldown with no resistance

Positive improvements/habits: One more workout…one more step closer to my goal. Vitamins, lots of water. Got some long stretches in after the session, and that’s a great habit that I’m building.

Valuable lessons: Clif bars are awesome if I’m ever in a position where I need energy within 15-30 minutes and don’t have time to make something. I gleaned a lot of juice from that bar before I went down to the gym tonight. I definitely need to learn to structure the rest of my life around my training, especially in my hardest training week (like this week), because things almost went sideways today what with the busyness and the forty million things I had to run around and do. Also, late night dinners, like after 10pm…bad idea. I had a horrible night’s sleep and need to either just have a quick snack or chuck down a couple of bananas and some fruit juice.

Strains and Pains to Note: Twinged my right hip on the weekend and it’s been bugging me for a few days. Teri managed to get some of the stiffness and pain out of it on Monday, but I felt it twinge again during my hill climbing. At the end of the session, I spun my legs and cranked my seat out as far as I could to try and stretch it out, and that helped somewhat. I have a feeling it’s directly related to my hydration.

Why I’m A Champion: This week has been a real challenge. Whereas my hardest training week is supposed to be 100% about training, it’s been 100% about everything else but training. Consequently I’ve had to modify my schedule about three times thus far…the latest being tonight’s workout. It was supposed to be a 30 minute Zone 2 swim. Wednesday is supposed to be my 45 minutes Zone 2 bike Benchmark, and my 45 minute Zone 2 run Benchmark. Now, all of a sudden the bike gets moved to Tuesday, the swim to Wednesday, the run to Thursday morning along with another swim Thursday night and weight training. It’s been frustrating, but what I’ve learned has been invaluable.

I have to tell people to screw off.

Literally, sometimes.

If this is so important to me, it should be the first thing in my calendar for the week. Social arrangements, appointments for things, everything else should fall down the list…and this is a hard thing for me to learn because I have a very difficult time saying ‘no’ to people. I avoid conflict as much as possible, but if it’s starting to affect my training, I’ve got to put my foot down. Period. I feel like a champion today though because when I look at the calendar on my wall, over the past eight weeks I see a grand total of only three individual workouts missed, and two of those were weight training sessions. I’ve done all of the hard stuff (short of this weekend’s brick). It that way, every single time I can rearrange my schedule so I don’t miss a training session instead of writing it off and sleeping on the couch, it’s a huge victory.

Today’s Menu:

• Breakfast: two breakfast burritos from McD’s with a large coffee (2 cream, 2 sugar) and two hashbrowns.
• Lunch: a six-inch BMT from Subway with all the veggies, even the hot stuff, mustard and lite mayo; 1L of water.
• Mid-afternoon break: short cappuccino with two raw sugar
• Dinner: four small fish cakes, 1 1/2 cups of rice, 1 cup of baked beans, 1 cup of steamed veggies, 4 cups of apple juice