Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Training, training...

In preparation for dragging my chubby behind from Elgin, to Enterprise, to Clarkston, etc. on this year's Cycle Oregon (which I was not going to sign up for. But that's another story that I won't go into at this particular point in time...) I've been riding my very cool, very chic 2010 all-carbon Specialized Roubaix. Indoors on the trainer, unfortunately. Because of weather, time constraints, etc. that's the most accessible place. It's not the most exciting riding, but it does keep me from turning into the Goodyear blimp. I go through a lot of DVD movies...

I'm up to pedaling an hour and forty minutes, and I try to vary the routine from session to session. For example, last night I did :05 warm-up, then :30 sitting spin on big ring cog 6 at 13+ mph, then went to timed intervals. The new resistance unit on my trainer is a lot more resistive than the old one that it replaced. So I did intervals for an hour, doing :01 standing on big ring cog 10 at 17+ mph, then :04 sitting big ring cog 6 at 13+ mph. By the end of the time, I looked like somebody had hit me with a bucket of water. I think my socks were even soaked through...

Then I moved on to my weight bench. I've been slowly increasing the weight I'm lifting without changing the number of reps. I've read where that's the way to build strength rather than mass. I'm bulky enough as it is. I'm up to 75 pounds on the bench press for 15 reps, followed by 25 crunches. Next is 25 butterfly curls at 38 pounds, then another 25 crunches. From there I move on to leg lifts, 25 lifts at 45 pounds, then I do 25 situps holding the leg lift weight up with my, of course, legs. Next is 25 bicep curls with the leg lift weights, first left arm, then right, then both. Last but not least is an exercise that I have no idea of the name for. I have a small dumbbell bar with 25 pounds on it that I hang behind my head with both hands and do 25 reps with. When I'm done with the bike and the weights, I cool off with a Cytomax and whey protein smoothie. It's supposed to be good for me and help with recovery. I don't know about that, but it tastes pretty good...

So anyway, as of last night I have just a skosh over 512 miles since January 1, including the 6.85 mountain bike miles from last Sunday, and I'm the same weight that I was when I finished Cycle Oregon last year, so I'm feeling pretty good about that. Last year I did Cycle Oregon on 1100 trainer miles and only about 200 road miles, which seems backwards but you do what you can, ya know?

On a side note, I'm extremely proud of my lovely wife. She's been working on exercising and watching what she eats all winter as part of the family Biggest Loser contest, and she told me the other day that she is now able to get into some clothes that she hasn't been able to wear in quite a while. YAY!!!! And even though the spring work is going on, she's still finding time to exercise!!!

2 comments:

Dean said...

Training is a good in and of itself. When it is for Cycle Oregon, it is even better. Keep up the good work.

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