Two days without any excercise and I feel it. Dropped by the bike shop near campus. In the shop where they service bikes they told me that for $100 they will basically take the bike apart, clean it, straighten out the bits that should be straight but aren't and put it together. Going to switch to street tires and add a double saddlebag basket on the back. It should make a good commuter bike. Also taking steps to cancel my gym membership and move to a new musclehead gym on my way to school. The old dude that showed me around could prob had forty pounds of muscle on me while rising only to my chin.

I would love to be able to sell my car but I don't think that's going to happen. Stoked about riding to class/work at least two days a week though.

Tuesday - 7.5mi mountain bike ride at dusk in the Sweetwater trail system. Okay, so actually it was full night by the time we got done. Freaked my riding buddies out by refusing to borrow a light, but there was reflected city glow from the cloud underbellies and I have dual suspension so I was rolling along just fine.

Gym workout (core, arms) followed by the usual weekday ride (16 miles, 16.7 mph average). I'm hungry.

quote:

Originally posted by Fashionpolice:

quote:

Originally posted by jbx:
It's quite possible to use weight, even machine-based circuits, to simply generate extra caloric demand and thus induce weight loss.

Curves! :P

I'm a fan of what I've read of the Curves methodology. ; )

There's a strange sort of seeming void in the "training for normal people" area of things it seems to me.

Lifters are well served, athletes amateur or otherwise, sports\hobby stuff as well, but "exercise for general health and fitness" seems lacking. To me.


Monday we did deadlifts for the first time in a while. 190 for the trainees, 280 for me. Need to get gloves\chalk as my Oly bar is a tad slippery for heavy DL otherwise, esp. once the sweating starts.

Overhead press as well, 90 for them, I tried 140, which I've done before but had a terrible day of it, 5, then 3, then 1-ish. Switched to 90 myself and upped the reps.

Then chins. Not a bad one at all tho the OHP was disappointing.

Did 3 sets of 10 (on each arm) of single arm'd kettlebell swings (35lbs).

Made sure to get my legs into the action.

I've been debating getting a 45lbs bell- thoughts, anyone?

Woot, dropped off the pirate bike here. Getting new rubber, a rack for the back and getting cleaned and adjusted. It should run about $160 all told. Hopefully it is really going to be a nice commuter bike when all is said and done. Pics to come.

Edit, you realize that commuter biking is a gateway drug, right? Pretty soon, you'll have rationalized the purchase of a second road or mountain bike since you can't get a really good work on your commuter anymore.

Wednesday - My road ride was only moderately successful, in that the flat I avoided last time I was on the road bike came to full fruition in the waning dusk of tonight's loop. So I only got an hour of ride time and 20 minutes of swapping tubes on the side of the road by "The Internation Peace School", whatever the hell unholy breed of charter education that is...

Yeah I see how that could happen too.

short workout today, deadlifts 135x10 225x6 275x6 295x4

my schedule got borked by midmorning and I lost almost an hour of time I thought I would have for the gym... grrrrr

weights up to 201, too much gain too fast for muscle, and my eyes tell me it isn't fat. I think it's just temp water. Pretty sure I'll be back to 196 by morning.

3 mile run, barefoot, in 25 minutes. Slow, but finally got my stride back. Felt good. Could have gone much further.

weekly weigh-in: dropped 2 lbs since last Monday. Fair progress. Now 11st 7

No exercise for 7 days now, after overdoing it last week; very sore after some downhilling. Frustrated rest period ahead of this coming weekends planned surfing/biking.

one hour surf in sweet offshore 2ft conditions. Loved it.

50 press ups
75 curls, 2.5kg per arm

last weeks mountain bike session that that did the knee damage!



The lead in



and the view from 450m, down to the sea



a favourite rocky, desolate 'no maps' downhill through the forestry. Hard on the bike, harder on this old rider...



Way to wet to hit the mountain this afternoon; very heavy rain, so i surfed instead. Always good

Holy crap, that's green! Looks like fun though.

Thursday - 19.5mi road bike ride around the Marriott Starr Pass loop. I actually felt quite good today. Managed some entertaining little sprints on a couple of the hills. Rode back after dark the right way tonight too—with my monstor 675 lumen Light & Motion ARC light scaring cars.

Actually, tonight I also bought a MagicShine bike light for mountain biking. The really sad part is the math on the deal.

I paid $300 for a $400 mercury halide light about 6 years ago. Now, for basically $75 you can get an LED one that is slightly brighter (900 lumens supposedly), does instant on/off and runs 3 hours on 4 oversized AA's, lol. And if I'd wanted to go "cheap", there is a 900 lumen flashlight for about $50 after batteries and charger. I opted out of that one only because it has a runtime of 30-60 minutes.

Progress!

Took my newly refit bike out last evening for a dry run.

I did a 10.6 mile loop.

Slow, I took close to an hour but that included a stop for a sandwich The stretch along the way to school was mostly back roads and was much easier than the way back. The busier road forced me to the sidewalk which made it much harder. I had a blast though, and it was good to see that it took barely longer to get to school by bike than it does by car, thanks to traffic, lights, and parking.

Neath Valley: 2hrs in very wet conditions on the mountain. Tough 4 mile initial climb into the wind and driving rain, was like riding through streams of mud and grit. Great fun though, not at all cold and we had a right laugh! Misty as hell and very challenging downhill single track - missed one turn and went over the birm, landing 15-20ft down the mountainside, but only a few cuts and bruises. The bikes handled the conditions better than the riders! A few wicked andrenaline rushes - exactly why we do it Upper body aching like hell, today.

Hope to surf today - family chores, wax board, clean bike and prep all the gear first though!



My mate, taking cover from the rain: circa 700m up. Apologies for the big pics, but my image editor is throwing an activeX error!

2hrs in small, clean surf at dawn this morning. Stoked.
50 x push ups.
70 x 2.5kg curls per arm.

That's awesome, Bic! Glad you didn't get hurt in that crash too. o_O

Saturday - 15mi group mtn bike ride out around the back of Gates Pass area. We did it in the reverse direction from what I normally do and since there were 17 riders of various degrees of expertise, it took like 3.5 hours to complete. Particularly for me since I broke from the group near the end to do a little more trail riding while they scurried back on the pavement. Managed to get a flat and some major cactus acupuncture on that section!

Still, we had a light overcast, so it was cool the whole time (by Tucson standards) and everyone had a fun time, I think.

70% chance of rain and heavy thunderstorms moving in off the gulf... I don't think I am riding to school today.

Sunday - 8.75mi mountain bike ride. Decided to see if my latest drive train tinkering had any effect and almost died when the chain immediately popped off and threw me over the downhill side of the bike. Luckily nothing but some scrapes on the elbow, but I really need to figure out WTF is wrong with this thing before my luck runs out!

Otherwise, a very nice ride. Saw a desert tortoise, a nice sunset and had some pretty packed trails to ride on. Wasn't going as fast as I would have liked but then again it was my 4th or 5th ride for the week.