The Wiggles

Got up and did a short run today, only about 33 minutes. Somebody has played with my alarm and I did not hear it go off so I had to stumble out of bed, grab my gear and get out of the house in a big hurry to even get those 33 minutes done! Was supposed to go to the Wednesday morning swim with the tri-gang but that does not get started again until next week. And I did a second workout yesterday after my bike ride. Yes....I....did!! After sitting on my butt for the majority of the afternoon watching college football (now I see why some prefer college football over the NFL, lots of turnovers, mistakes and general craziness makes for good games!!) I put one of our Wiggles DVDs in for Luke (19 months). He LOVES The Wiggles. For those of you with no kids or older kids, The Wiggles are an Australian musical group of 4 men who play instruments and dance around like goofballs but my little one gets SO excited at even the mention of them. Look them up on YouTube and make fun of them all you want but they did $30 million in sales last year...4 college friends who can each play an instrument have managed to tap into the minds of little boys worldwide. So we danced and jumped around the basement for about 45 minutes while the DVD was on...you know, jump on one leg, wave your hands in the air, do "The Flap", very simple crazy stuff. And Luke giggles and laughs and does his best to imitate which is so very cute.

Hellooooo 2008!!!!!!!!!!

I know you have all been waiting patiently at your computers, for this post...did she or didn't she get on her bike today, the first day of 2008? What excuse did she come up now? Well I am pleased to report that I did in fact do my bike workout today! It is true...I had to remove the laundry that had accumulated on my bike over the last few weeks...I am ashamed to tell you that. But it is DONE! A bit of a warm-up then 3 sets of the Muscle Tension Drill for 6 minutes each with a 4 minute easy pedal in between. The MT drill is done at a really low cadence, 50-55, in a really tough gear. You are also to elevate your bike about 4-6 inches. The idea is to concentrate on your pedal stroke and keep your heart rate no higher than 135. The video on the website was really good at explaining it and showing how to get your bike set up...so with a phone book and a large children's hard cover of bedtime stories, I was set. The hard part was to keep my heart rate low...JP said DO NOT let it get above 135...he was pretty adamant about this point so I had to really concentrate on the pedal strokes and breathing to keep the old heart in check. Then it was 4 sets of Fast Pedalling for 1 minute with a 2 minute easy pedalling in between. This one was fun because I kept calling out to the boys "Am I winning?" And my 5 year old was very excited to see me pedalling so fast and cheered the entire time!! I have been training my 19 month old to say "GO Mom GO!!" and pump his fist in the air. So every time he sees me in workout gear, this is what he says and does. And I LOVE IT!!

Sunday Run and other stuff

Went out for a run today as there was no Sunday swim scheduled. Wanted to play with all my new gear...new running coat, new mits, new long underwear and of course my garmin. It was minus 20 degrees outside today. But got a solid 50 minutes in. I even installed my garmin software and downloaded all the info. Really neat!! Shows the map with the route that I ran, you can plot just about any set of data you want to...HR, pace, elevation, distance, grade etc. Not sure what it all means so I will send it to JP and let him tell me. I also figured out how to turn the back light on. I have to say that as much as this thing does a couple of things I have noticed, the HR info is in very small numbers and difficult to read. There must be a way to make that info bigger. The wrist part is really big on my arm and I have to put it over my jacket as it was too cold to have any bare skin exposed. The dials are too small to press with my mits on and I did not dare take them off so I had to live with the display that I went out with. I guess once I have more specific workouts, I will hopefully have the forward thinking to get it set up to give me the information I want. Mondays are my rest day because most all of my training is going to take place in the mornings and I have an 8:00am meeting every monday and just do not have the time to get anything in on Mondays. So Tuesday is a 45 minute bike doing a few sets of the "Muscle Tension" drill (?), Wednesday and Thursdays are run days this week, Friday is a core workout, Saturday is an hour on the bike and Sunday swim. Looking forward to it!!

Not so bad, not so bad...

Got my first few weeks of training yesterday. Very manageable in my opinion. I knew it was coming but was ignoring it...lots of biking!! And lots of biking drills. I have been studying the videos on the Carmichael website to make sure I have a handle on what I am trying to do. In fact, my first 45 minutes is on January 1, good thing I have no New Year's plans, might as well start it off on my bike. Kind of ironic, don't you think? I need to ask JP if he did that on purpose...I also got a long and detailed e-mail about why I was doing the specific workouts and how they are supposed to work together over the course of the week. ie. my legs will be tired and my runs are only for general fitness right now. Don't worry about doing them fast, "Just get out there and do them". Did I mention JP is very direct? No softy there. Work hard on this one, don't worry too much about HR on that one. Interesting!! I have not known there to be method to this, but it makes total sense now.

Conversation with Justin

I just spent the last hour on the phone with Justin. My head is full of information. Feeling a bit overwhelmed, actually. But not panicking...yet. Basically, I have my work cut out for me! We laid down the basics and timelines and scheduling etc. We set some preliminary goals which were kind of fun because even though we have only chatted this once, he sounds like he really believes in me. As I guess he should, as I am PAYING him!! He was quite honest in that he said he would be pushing me to see what I am capable of. He wants me to download my Garmin to him every week so he can analyse the data...I didn't mention that I have yet to figure out how to turn the light on so I can see the numbers in the dark. So downloading data might take me a bit!! I was playing with my cell phone this week and see that my total usage minutes since I got it in August are a whopping 32 minutes!! Technology and me do not see eye to eye. Anyway, I should have the next month's training plan here shortly, will keep you posted!!