The return of the STADIUMS

I slept in just a little bit this morning. I got up at 5:30AM instead of the usual 5:00AM. It felt pretty good getting the extra sleep. I have a cup of coffee (no sweetener or anything – not on the diet) and prepared my meals for the day. The structure of the meals has been good for me. I like many concepts and had previously adopted them – so conforming to this diet has been easy. I like numerous small means. I like healthy food. This has simply refined the process. I made myself breakfast, lunch and an afternoon snack. I will report after the first week on what has worked and what I need to improve on.  But so far it has helped me redefine some of my habits! 

I then hopped on the bike. I took it easy this morning and just rode the bike to work.

English muffin, two eggs, tomato, and avacodo - yum

Well, I’m still playing and not training. But I am having good time. I was planning on swimming at lunch but I got to the gym and noticed that my goggles were at my desk. Well, the race was last weekend so I guess I could go ahead and kill it for lunch. It was supposed to be 98 degrees outside and it felt like it.

We made our way to the STADIUMS. It was hot. I have not done the STADIUMS in several months. I will be sore tomorrow from the stairs. I like to run up every other stair as fast as I can and control the recovery. There is no lollygagging. Every rep is intense! The fastest that we have done this is 15 seconds up and 1:15 recovery – the amount of time it takes for you to get back down the stairs and ready for the next set. If you run down the steps you will have about 40 seconds to recover. As will all intervals the first few are no problem. It is only with the building work load that you start to suffer. I ended up doing 21 sets! I was pleases with the result considering that I have not done the in so long and the intense heat!

One of the early reps - Vic right on my tail.

I really had second thoughts about the Wednesday night race ride. My legs were fatigued from the STADIUMS. As I left campus Steven (the guy visiting from Purdue) joined me at the stop light. We rode out to Jackson Station together for the ride. When we arrived I was surprised at how many people had come out considering the heat. There were 8 or 10 of us and we picked up a couple more while on the trace. As soon as we left the trace Sam sprinted ahead. There was a huge gap opening up and I gave it a hard effort to bridge it. So, there I was, only a minute or two into the real ride and I was blowing up. My heart rate reached 181 BPM – it is not often that my heart beats that fast during cycling. I was happy to have some riders join me. I quickly grabbed a wheel. I would spend most of the rest of the ride holding on to the end of the train. I never got dropped but I sure didn’t pull much during the ride. With my commute I again got about 39 miles on a Wednesday. You add that to the 30 I get on each of the Tuesday / Thursday rides (including commute) and my weekday mileage is adding up – I am getting about 100 miles a week Monday – Friday. The weekends are just gravy! I really should be logging this stuff better – no training equals no longing. I guess I still have the Garmin website!