Sport Beans to the Rescue and Power Cycle #3

Today was such a crazy day, I had lots of plans to finish writing and making a lot of calls for my clients and trying to figure out how to do this with kids crawling all over. I got up around 5am to finish my work and I had scheduled my kids to go to a 4hr winter camp at 9am, low and behold it was cancelled after driving to Manchester, man I needed to go into full overdrive to figure out how I could get coverage for my kids so I could finish my work, get in a 1hr extreme strength session and make it to a meeting at 12:15p. Well, thanks to my sitter Lindsey for coming early and my mother in law for helping out and some good friends who took the boys I was able to do all the above and make my meeting ( about 15 minutes late).

However, the one thing I did forget to do is eat but in my trusty purse I always carry a chocholate goo, cliff bar and sport beans. Gotta love the sport beans it helped me through, and I was able to get home and eat properly without passing out. Going well over 18hrs without eating is not a good thing especially after a strong bike class last night and my intense strength this morning- I don;t advocate for missing meals ( which I never do, just ask anyone) you need to eat.

Anyway, I was so glad the day was finally over with regards to my responsibilities so I was able to just chill and play Yahtzee with my kids and listen to their day.

My cycling class last night went really well again, the watts are coming really nice right now, its either my strength is significantly better or that my bike volume is down and I can really work these classes. WE are maintaining good aerobic outputs here, no high end V02max stuff right now, lots of sustained efforts and tempo efforts for good stints of time, heres what we did:

AFter a good proper warm up of about 25 minutes, the main set was to equal 2011= 33:30 total main set

10 min at 238 watt avg/92 RPM avg/peak HR of 156

8 min @ 244 watt avg/92 RPM avg/peak HR of 157

6 min @ 260 watt avg/92 avg/peak HR of 161

4 min @ 263 watt avg/95 rpm avg/peak HR of 162

2 min @ 269 watt avg/ 95 RPM avg/peak HR of 160

2 x 1.75 min @ 276 and 278 watt avg 98/99 RPM peak HR of 165

I gotta love the 6 min effort, I was feeling in tempo mode and I avg 260, my LT wattage for my 6 min test last year was 275, I'm hoping for much better numbers this year. WE'll see.

Power Bike #2- friggin great watts

This is all I have to say about my main set today on my bike:

10min at SS pace: 242 avg watts

2 min recovery spin

8 min- 248 watts

2 min rec

6 min- 247 watt avg

2 min rec

4 min- 250 watt avg

2 min rec

2 min- 255 avg watts

Kicking ass my friends my a max HR of 150, keeping my cadence at 86-88 like coachie wants

Average watts for 30 minute interval 248

Average watts for 1hr bike- 197


Lets hope the running comes along like the bike is coming, I swear it has everything to do with my strength training and working on all my weaknesses. Thanks Jeremee, Janda and Sara, please continue to kick my ass on a weekly basis.

On the Twelth Day of Christmas ( Version #2)

On the Twelth Day of Christmas my true love gave to me:

12 loads of laundry to do and when the kids go back to school-not that I'm counting

11 broken christmas bulbs

10 batches of gingerbread cookies I made last night

9 changes of clothes my daughter did yesterday

8 times my boys tried to kill each other this morning ( starting at 5:30am)

7 times I had to flush my toilets in the house because my kids refuse to flush ( don't ask me what's in them)

6 loads of dishes I've done in two days- because my husband and kids refuse to use the same cups/plates so........

5 glorious days until christmas is over ( do I sound grumpy)

4 kids that are up at 5:30am trying to talk to me and outside playing in the snow before 7am

3 Topsfield Fair Fish that have died in a matter of weeks- what a waste

2 Guineaa pigs that I desperately want to get rid off

And 1 very incontinent older male dog - who wakes up in pee and mommy has to clean him up. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Cycling with Power, class 1

So last night was my first cycling/trainer class with power this season with Coachie. This past fall I've been concentrating on cyclocross and doing some other outdoor riding but mostly about 3-4hrs a week max. Mostly high quality work not a lot of fluff. I really look forward to December when this class starts ( I did a similar class with Karen Smyers at Fast Splits using their computrainers and it was so much fun). There is something to be said working hard next to fellow athletes and actually having your coach with you, watching your form, looking at your numbers right there (there is no getting away with anything when he is there).

Anyway, I swam 3400yds in the morning, had a pretty eventful day with the kids and then it was off to class at 5p. The workout was:
W/u 10 minutes building from regenerative watts < 115 to intensive zone 155-189 watts

F/b single leg drills for 5-6 minutes

Build session starting at extensive zone ( 115-154) building to low range tempo 215 watts for ~ 5 minutes.

Main Set: Descending ladders, repeat ladder twice. 2 minutes in between each interval and in between the sets. Maintain Steady State Watts and build to low end tempo watts by last 1/4 of the interval. This was not supposed to be a hard effort.

6 minutes ( hold a cadence of 60-65 for 2 min, then increase cadence to 70-75 for second two minutes then increase cadence to 85-90 for last 2 minutes, bringing watts from Steady State to Tempo)

recover 2 minutes

4 minute interval ( hold cadence of 60-65 for 1 min, increase to 70-75 for 1 minute, then increase to 80-85 then 90 for last minute- again Steady State to Tempo)

recover 2 minutes

2 minute interval ( repeat above increase cadence and watt effort every 30 seconds)

recover 2 minutes

Repeat above interval

Warm down 5-10 minutes

<span style="font-weight:bold;">My Watts from last year were:

Regenerative pace ( <65% of effort) < 115
Extensive pace ( 65-70% effort) 115-154 watts
Intensive pace ( 70-75% effort) 155-189
Steady State pace ( 75-80% effort) 190-214 watts
Tempo pace ( 85-90% effort) 215-253 watts

V02 max- 86%- 254 watts
up to 100% of V02 max ( which someone can maintain up to 6 min) 280 watts

Ok, last night I felt great, I didn't work really hard and I had to really focus on keeping my watts where I was supposed to be, however, my effort was minimal at the watts I was supposed to put up so I told coach that I felt great and that I could go up a notch on my watts to reach my perceived level of exertion. Here are my numbers for my intervals.

First Interval:
6 min @ 240 AVG with final 1/4 at 280 watts
4 min @243 AVG with final 1/4 at 279 watts
2 min @257 AVG with final 1/4 at 290 watts

Second Interval
6 min @ 246 AVG with final 1/4 at 280 watts
4 min @ 250 AVG with final 1/4 at 290 watts
2 min @ 277 AVG with final 1/4 at 348 watts

My HR never went above 150, I was able to talk and hold good conversation it was so crazy. Both Coach and myself were surprised that my level of fitness was doing this well in December with not a cycling focus. What we are attributing my new found strength on the bike is my recent strength training program I've been doing 3 x a week and if my numbers are looking like this now I can't wait to see what they are when we are in the height of training.

Now cycling on the trainer and pushing good watts has never been a huge problem for me its translating those numbers to the road and performing to my abilities on the bike that I know I can do and my coach knows I can do. I am so psyched that I felt so good and hopefully with more strength work with Jeremee at BNS Fitness and coach J I'll be cycling like a machine come spring.

Heres to kicking some major ass to all you men out there this spring, watch out.

" Uncle, Uncle!!!!!"

So I have been very fortunate to find a great physical therapist who has fixed a lot of my ailments over the last year and to keep me healthy and able to workout the way I want to workout. My plantar fascitis is gone after only 3 months and my initial hamstring issue that I went to her 1 year ago hasnt surfaced in over 10 months. I am very fortunate to see Sara, however, some appointments I just have to cry, " Uncle".

Over the past few weeks as my running has been able to increase and I'm starting to inject some speed in my workouts my IT band on my left leg has tightened a bit. Now, its not terrible, no worse than it has been over the years, I just have to roll it a ton and work on it before and after I workout. However, the tightening has caused a bit of stiffening around the left knee cap and even though my knee doesn't hurt when I run after workouts its been sore, especially when I touch it.

Back in 1995 I tore my left ACL skiing the lovely bumps of Sunday River and back then they did Patella tendon repairs, not the cadaver ones they do today or using some of your own hamstring muscle, so I asked Sara if something could be wrong with my old ACL issue, she felt strongly that it was my IT band tightening and causing some shifting and stiffening of my left knee cap. Well, on wednesday my lovely friend worked on my knee and I've never cried uncle more than once in any session we had and I think I cried over 10 times. She manipulated my knee, moved it, hell, I don't know what she did, all I know is that session killed, I didn't know laughing and crying crossed a very similar line. In the end, what was so surprising to me ( and it shouldn't be at this point) is today no pain in the knee, nothing, nada, nothing, just crazy. I had to email her and tell her, I felt so bad I was such a baby in the office but she was happy I wasn't in any pain. She did say that she still needs to do some work on it next week so my smile turned to sadness and I thought I was going to cry again, she laughed.

What is so crazy with this sport that we do is that every week I have something new to complain about, some new tweak, some new ache, some new pain, however I firmly believe if you catch things early, address it, find the right people to help you these injuries won't mount to much. I am a firm believer of that and I have a great PT to help me.


THANKS SARA!!!!!!!!!!

PISSED OFF!!!!

So, I honestly believe that everyone has the choice to do what they want for themselves in their lives, I don't choose what people want to do nor do I typically criticize peoples choices with what they do with their lives, hey, if you want to do drugs, not go to school, eat McDonalds' for the rest of your life that's your poor decision I'm not going to give you my opinion unless you ask me ( but don't ask me unless your ready for it). The reason I bring this up is that someone recently said to me that, they don't understand why I exercise so much, don't you think it takes time away from your kids, husband, don't you have a job, don't you need to do household chores, etc... the person continues to say, " you must be so rich that you have people take care of everything for you so you can just exercise 8 hrs a day?" You must be a very selfish person?.

Ok, of course I could go in a lot of different directions here and I could certainly rake her over the coals but I needed to tell why I do what I do ( not to justify because I don't need to do that for anyone but myself) but I needed to explain, so here is what I said.

Listen, I exercise because I love to exercise and if I have the time to exercise more than 1hr a day then I will. I love the way exercise makes me feel both inside and out and it also improves my mood and it makes me a better wife and mother. I also set a great example for my children with regards to fitness and explaining to them that fitness can be part of your life and should be because it has so many benefits for you. My husband, myself and my 4 kids all play sports and we play together as much as we can outside because sitting in front of a TV or a DS is not what we deem as exciting or constructive. Now, TV and computers are still fun but we choose to use them selectively so that it means more to them when they do use them.

Now, if your comments are being directed to me because you lack that motivation to exercise to make that change in your life, what I say to you is, " you don't need to exercise 2-3hrs a day to make a difference in your life, you can walk for 20 minutes, use the stairs instead of the elevator, walk around your neighborhood". Just because I workout this much doesn't mean that everyone has to workout this much to make a difference in their lives. When it comes to affecting my family it primarily doesn't because I make sure that I exercise while they are at school/work or on the weekends my husband and I will rotate and make sure that someone is always with the kids. Grocery shopping, cleaning, 20 loads of laundry, animal care, sweeping, mopping, ironing is all done with minimal left and I get the workouts in, so to your question, " NO, I DON"T HAVE A MILLION PEOPLE HELPING ME SO I CAN WORKOUT!!!!! Don't use me as your scape goat to not being able to workout or eat well or make changes in your life, if I can get up at 4am to workout because that's the only time I can then I do, what's your excuse?