Up and down, up and down...

A real good week of training. I managed to get in 4 hours of swimming, two and a half hours on the bike on the open road and another 3 hours of running. I really enjoyed getting to spend so much time in the pool but the real highlight for me was getting out on Saturday for the team ride.  I was a fairly cool morning at Ardrossan where about 24 of us showed up. We covered about 60kms and it just felt great to be spinning away, working the gears, keeping an eye on my cadence and burning up some calories. According to my watch I burned up 1800 on the ride. 
Earlier in the week we did a hill ride. Pretty straight forward. You go up the hill and the you go down the hill. Up and down, up and down... for an hour.

Me or the ostrich

First week back at home after a week vacation in Mexico! Great weather, lots of sun, sand and swimming.  I was in Puerto Vallarta with Deb. We had a chance to go out early for a few runs.  It would start to get hot almost as soon as the sun came up, so we had to go out for a run early in the day. One day, as I was running along had the feeling I was being watched.  I looked through the fence beside me and there was a great big ostrich staring at me.  I don't know who was more surprised, me or the ostrich.

Dog tired today!

Today is Easter Sunday.  The morning was free for a nice swim  and then a good brunch at the Royal Glenora Club. After lunch my wife and I went to the New Art Gallery of Alberta where we saw an exhibit of portrait photography by Yousuf Karsh. Late in the afternoon it was still pretty nice out so I headed out for a zone 2 endurance training run.  I planned to run for an hour on a flat course and keep my heart rate under 130 bpm.
I decided to return a couple of movies to Blockbuster on the way.  Then at the last minute I thought I would take my dog, Pixel,with me and get her some exercise at the same time. I head out with dog leash and movies in hand.
Pixel's leash has a doggy bag holder on it just in case she needs a potty break on the way.  As I was running along I was holding the leash and the bag holder in a certain way so it wouldn't bounce around and a couple of movies.  We ran for about a block and she had to do #2.  So now I am running with 2 movies, her leash with the bag holder and a little bag of crap.  I am still trying to keep my heart rate under 130. I eventually found a bush to stash the bag of poop where I would get it on my return trip.  About ten minutes later she seemed to be tired out and not enjoying her run anymore. She needed another poop stop. Pixel was also wearing a harness that might have been a bit too tight for her, so I took it off, she did her business and she felt like running again. Now I am carrying her harness, her leash with the bag holder, 2 movies, and another little bag of crap.

Soon enough we got to a trash can and the movie store and the rest of the run went smoothly. I dropped her off at home twenty minutes into an hour run and went the rest of the way on my own.
It is fun to have a dog as a running companion, I know Pixel enjoyed it. I just need to learn to juggle.
We will both sleep well tonight.  Happy Easter!

First day for an outdoor ride!

First day for an outdoor ride! Finally after a long winter of indoor spinning we get to get out and hit the open road. Today about 25 of us met up at the Ardrossan community hall just east of the city for a team ride through the countryside.  These bikes are not meant for riding is the city so it is best to find some quieter paved country roads and secondary highways that we can put on some good miles without having to touch the brakes.

A beautiful spring morning with clear skies and a slight wind. The temperature was around 10c so I had to layer up, wear gloves, leg warmers.

All and all, I was a pretty comfortable, and it was fun to be riding my bike on the road again.
Here is my a view of the ride that I get from my GPS heart rate monitor. It tracks my speed/ distance and pace as well as about a half a dozen additional bits of information as I ride.  It even displays a map of where I went.  I get a read out like this for every one of my workouts.

I am giving my swim muscles a break.

Thursday spin and we are back in the shop for another weekly workout. I have spent the last three days  focused on the swimming and today I am giving my swim muscles a break. The workout today is a sixty minute spin followed by a twenty minute run.  A dozen of us did the spin in the McNally high school workshop and the ran outside on a nearby paved trail.  There was a  brief snow storm outside while we were spinning and then it wad cleared up for the run portion. The idea is to get your legs used to the second transition from biking to running.  It was support to be an easy run but some of my teammates are very fast runners so it turned out to be a very high tempo run for me.
It was great to get back outside and I look forward to the next workout.