Th - Bike and Run

Wed ended up being a day off - except for the wrestling in the evening with a couple of the youth after the youth group meeting. (I've got some nice carpet burns on both knees... but am thankful that it's all that hurts today. :-)

So this morning I was up with the alarm to get out for a short ride (an hour). I was out before the sunrise, but watched it rise during the first 15 minutes of my ride. I stopped several times to take photos of it because it was really pretty; and there is something about stopping for a photo that changes the whole mood of the training time. It's a good reminder that it's not just for physical training but has value in being out and enjoying Life. I saw another Road Runner at one point and was able to stop and unzip my camera pouch before it decided to continue into the bushes: they sure are neat birds!

As for the actual training today: it was 16.6 miles on my bike for 62 minutes. The time across the dam was to be done as high cadence work - spinning. For me that means a cadence of 105 and up. (I think my powerband is around 95-115 revolutions per minute. I do pedal at lower and higher cadences, but most of my power comes in that range.) There were times when I wanted to switch to a higher gear, but for the most part I stayed in that range over 105 and even had a couple brief times in the 120's. This training is different from pushing the bigger gears at lower cadences, for me spinning is an easier day but still have good value. My HR never went above 160 for this part of the ride.

I also rode up the Prayer Mountain driveway 3 times today. I started in my lowest gear for the first one, moved up 1 gear for the next trip, moved up another gear for the 3rd trip and then one more gear and failed. (In part due to mechanical problems with my chain jumping around on my 4 sprocket on my rear cog. I need to take it off and clean it and check it as it's giving me problems.) This is kind of a neat exercise as it gets tough pedaling the hill in those 'higher' gears. My lowest is 39 up front and 27, 24, 21, 19, ... in the back. I will likely do this again, but do it in a ladder type of routine where once failure is reached I will return down the hill from that point and then shift down one gear and try it again (repeating as needed); if it's successful then it will be repeated in the next lowest gear until I'm back in my lowest one. That ought to be a good work out and will look to do it next week. 

Until today I've not included any 'failure' type of training in my cycling. This is common in weight training and I know what it's like to be lifting alone and have to crawl out from under the bar when I was trying to get one more rep in on the bench press. It's kind of a scary moment and on the bike it is a little scary too as uncliping can sometimes be trouble when you are pedaling up hill, tired and etc. All of my falls have been at slow speed and usually involve getting in or out of my pedals. Thankfully I didn't fall today, but just stopped.

After getting back home and putting my stuff away, drinking some water and eating another 1/3 of a Clif bar I went for a run. I would like to run atleast once a week to see how realistic it is to think about attempting my first marathon this fall. So today it was only 3 miles, but the pace was a little faster than last week ~8:30. Not where I'd like to be, but I haven't run seriously (trained for it) for a loooong time. My goal would be a sub 8 minute pace.

[Photos: The sunrise was spectacular this morning so I stopped several times to take a picture. One is of a building in the distance reflecting the first rays of the sun; the second is the sun up about 5 minutes later.]