Friday GMA Bike Day

After a crappy day yesterday on the track, I needed a nice bike day with perfect weather. This weekend and the coming week is going to be crazy with GMA week on the horizon. This is always the week where the Christian music industry congregates to "show their wares." It usually pretty brutal with all the posing and the schedules. It's always pretty ridiculous. Anyway, it was great to get to get in a nice relaxing ride before all of the craziness begins. The reindeer games, for me, begin tomorrow with a speaking engagement in Nashville. We'll see how it goes. In the meantime, here are the stats for today's ride.


Date: 04/17/2009
Time Taken: 01:09:25
Total Distance: 21.50 mi.
Burned: 1,120 (kcal)
Workout Weight: 190.0 lbs.
Effort: Hard
Quality: Good
Pace: 03:13 (avg)
Speed: 18.58 (mi/hr) (avg)

The picture to the right is of the appropriately named Heaven's Pass. This is my favorite part of any of the rides that I go on. It's beautiful at any time of the year but especially in the spring and summer. I have a spiritual experience every time I go through this area. It's amazing!

A Sore Calf Running Day

Have had a bit of a frustrating day after my morning run. What has gone from, what I thought was a cramp, has morphed in to a minor injury or slight muscle pull. It's now extremely sore and instead of being able to run tomorrow, now I have to spin on the recumbent bike and I'm not too thrilled about that. I would've loved to have taken a long ride tomorrow but the weather is supposed to not get above 40 degrees. This weather is brutal and I'm ready to move to a tropical region where I belong!

Today's run was actually not that bad aside from the so-called cramp that I thought I had. I felt good otherwise and the injury or pull just shows me how much I still need to work on the running portion of my training.

Heard a great podcast from Everyman Endurance that talked about making it through adversity from the perspective of Todd Crandell. It was very inspiring in many ways and in fact somewhat spiritual. Check out the link. Very cool.

A Run Instead of Bike

Yesterday was Troy's 38th birthday and it turned out to be a really bad one for him. He lost his wallet and had to cancel all credit cards and all the hassle that goes along with that. I felt bad for him. Consequently, he didn't get to get his run in yesterday and was going to get it in today after he gets to North Carolina. Hopefully, he'll be able to stay on his training schedule minus the biking.

Also yesterday, I didn't get a chance to do a blog update due to being too busy with work and carting around teenagers for activities. I wouldn't have it any other way. I love being able be around my girls and their friends and love that they feel comfortable enough to come to the house to hang out where it's safe and away from trouble. Well yesterday I was able to get in my allotted 45 minutes of running but today I was supposed to ride for 40 minutes. However, it rained really hard here so that put a damper on any type of ride. So I waited out the rain then slapped on my running shoes and went for a 40 minute run. Tomorrow I will replace my run with a bike ride and I'll be even.

The calf seems to be healing up although not as quickly as I would like. It's still a bit sore when I run, but I'm purposely taking it slower as to not further injure it.

Testing Out the Calf

Okay, we're back on our regular training schedule after this past weekend and today, by design, is a light day that consists of only weight training. Troy and I met at the gym at 7:30 this morning to push weights then get on with our day.

Troy had a bit of a mental setback due to his weigh in this morning. He seems to be holding steady at 300 lbs. This was discouraging for him because he hasn't seemed to have lost weight. However, he's losing inches and it's definitely noticeable. That's the most important part because he's gaining muscle mass and muscle is much more dense than fat. At any rate, he's ratcheting up his diet even more and going to really focus in on his food intake because we know it's not something he's not doing on the training side of things.

Me on the other hand, . . . I actually had a crazy "food filled" night last night with Shelby. We decided to pig out on junk food and watch movies. We had a good time eating pizza, garlic bread sticks, and Coke. I know that's not good for me, but I realize that I can splurge once in a while and it not bother me. However, I'm back on track for this week.

Lastly, the video is of me testing out running on my calf. It seems to be much better with very little soreness. But, I'm going to continue to take it slow and let it properly heal so as to not re-injure or further injure the muscle.

Happy Monday.