Two bricks and weight training

Wow. A lot to write tonight. Over the past 2 days a lot has happened. I had 2 great bricks, one of which stopped me from being able to stay awake long enough to type up an entry, a successful trip to the weight room, some guy boning his secretary in his car, and a new HRM (finally). Wait... woah woah, did he just say some guy boning his secretary in his car? Uhh, yeah, I did. In the middle of my ride through West Creek tonight I passed a Land Rover which seemed to be parked in an odd place on the side of the road. On my way back around I couldn't help but notice that there was a man in the drivers seat... and a much younger woman in his lap, and they were going to town. It was probably the most awkward training moment of my entire life. The weirdest part was that it was light out, there were other people running and cycling, and there were cars passing by. I don't know, it just makes me laugh. Now that I got that exciting experience out of the way it's time to move on to the workouts. I'll start with last nights time trial practice...

We did things a little differently this time. We usually do our intervals with distances as our bench marks. Usually it's 2 miles on, 1 mile off for 30 miles. Last night we did it with timed intervals. 3 minutes on, 3 minutes off. What was even crazier was that we did it in a similar fashion to a ladder. We started in 53x15 and worked our way down to 53x11, and then finally back up to 53x15 again. After this we 3x5min @ high cadence with 2 min of rest in between. I can't figure out why just yet, but the high cadence stuff was hard. Hard to keep your form while your legs are going crazy and hard to have your muscles working so fast. It was good though, because if you can feel good at a higher cadence you can save yourself the trouble of having to struggle in a higher gear. Great workout. Between the 2 workouts (time and distance based), I prefer the timed intervals. It was a lot harder on your legs, and not as easy to give up on. After our intervals we did our normal run of just under 6 miles. My running is really improving. I feel a lot more comfortable and my legs are moving a lot quicker than they used to. No frisky adults last night though.

This morning I got up and made my way to the gym for my normal workout. Lower weights, more reps, more sets, less rest. I'm really curious to know what kind of heart rate I have while I'm working out at the gym and defineatly how many calories I'm burning. I've read that you burn a lot of calories while you're lifting weights, although it sure doesn't feel like it. The exercises were the same as Monday night. I'll probably stick with one group of exercises for 2-3 weeks, then switch to new ones. I'm not a fan of switching exercises all the time because I like to see improvement, but it is a good idea to switch it up every once and awhile so your muscles don't get stale and used to the same ol same ol, hence switching every 2-3 weeks.

All of this leads us up to tonight. I got a call from 3sports today to let me know my HRM had come in. I swung by the shop to pick it up. I wasn't really sure what to expect. I really did not know what kind of information I would be getting from this type of thing but I knew that once I figured it out it'd be really helpful. And indeed it was. The model I got came with the chest strap and watch, a foot pod (for distance, speed and running pace) and batteries, which I was pleasantly surprised to see. I strapped it on and hopped on the bike. I had planned a simple workout for the evening. 30 miles on the road bike, 6 miles running. No intervals, nothing complicated, just a strong bike workout and a steady run. I ended up averaging 20.8 for the 30 miles and, according to my HRM, burning 1300 calories just from the bike. I'm still not sure how to interpret the heart rate readings but I stayed in the 150-170 range for most of the ride. I unfortunately wasn't able to figure out the foot pod before my run so I wasn't able to get any pace information (I need to read the manual), but I did burn another 700 calories and kept my heart rate in the same general area as when I was on the bike. The coolest part about having it was knowing how hard my body was working. A lot of triathlon is your mind telling you that your body is struggling and you should slow down and your legs are sore so you should stop. But thats all psychological, at least most of the time. Knowing your heart rate gives you an idea of really how hard your working, and it's a little easier to ignore what you're head is saying if you can see that your body is really doing OK. Another great brick. Burned a total of just over 2000 calories. Holy crap thats a lot.

I figure after learning that I actually do burn that many calories after such an intense work out, it's a good time to address my most recent problem. I don't think I'm eating enough. I am dragging all day, half asleep, half awake, but mostly asleep. I can't get any energy to do things at work sometimes and staying awake in class is a battle which I usually lose. I was concerned when I saw that I had gained a few pounds that maybe I haven't been eating right, so I started to watch my intake. Not really change it too much, just being mindful of some of the not so good things I was taking in (i.e. cookies etc.). Now I'm thinking that I just need to eat! Its no wonder that I'm struggling at work. I'm easily burning 2000 calories in one workout and I don't even know if I'm eating that much every day! I will resume my habit of putting a scoop of peanut butter in my oatmeal in the morning and having a cookie with my lunch. And that's the end of that problem.

Long post. Lots of good stuff. There's more but I don't want to write a book. Vacation this weekend. I'm really looking forward to it. I'm going to try to get a run in Saturday morning but you probably won't hear from me again until Monday. Thanks for reading.

Listening to: Trance radio.

Feeling: Like a car feels when the gas light comes on.