A story of going from being a non-runner to planning for a marathon in three years...

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Time to Compute



Jason did indeed take my hint and get me a bike computer for my birthday. He hooked it up for me last night and even though my birthday isn't until tomorrow I went ahead and tried it out.

And promptly felt like the slowest cyclist ever.

I tried Tabata intervals for the first time and after the first 20 seconds, while I was on my 10 seconds of rest, Jason (who was on the treadmill next to my bike) looked over and said, "Are you okay?"

"Yep," I panted. "They're supposed to be like this." Then my 10 seconds of rest was over and I was back to pedaling furiously trying to keep my speed above 18 MPH. I didn't always succeed. Thankfully my bike won't blow up if my speed drops.

It definitely wasn't called The Bike That Couldn't Slow Down.*

(*Bonus points if you get the reference)

Anyway, I then rounded out my bike workout by riding until I hit 15 minutes. I was dripping sweat everywhere even though our basement hovers between 58 and 65 degrees (per the thermometer on my bike computer! How nifty is that?)

I laughed at these when I heard about them, but maybe I should invest in a bike thong?

Bike Thong


I mentioned to Jason that riding on the trainer felt really hard and he pointed out that the trainer has adjustable resistance and right now it's set at the hardest setting. Hmmm. Maybe that's why my average speed was 13.75 MPH but it felt like I was trying a lot harder? Or maybe I'm just a slow cyclist.

In addition to those 15 minutes of cycling I did the same weight workout I mentioned here. The only thing I skipped were the bent over barbell rows. See, when I was bringing in the groceries on Sunday one of the bags slipped and did something to my left forearm. Not sure what but it burned like hell at the time and then last night it just felt wrong when I used it to pull up the barbell. Here's hoping I just bruised something and it will be fine in a few days.

And, oh yeah, did I mention I ran 5.5 miles on Monday night? I ran a nice 10 minute pace but still felt kind of sore during and afterward. I've always had a goal in the back of my mind of getting my "easy" pace to be 9:00 minute miles but I don't think that's going to happen any time soon!