Monday, October 27, 2008

Into the wind...

Sunday was a tough exercise day. I started the day fine but was not feeling the exercise. This sometimes happens, even to me. However, I will always give the outing a fair shake and almost always I will get in the groove. When running I will not call it a day until at least a couple of miles are under my belt. At about the 2 mile mark I will start getting into - the endorphins will start flowing, the neurons will be firing - there will be joy in the world again. I never come back from an exercise session sorry for having done it - even if I am not feeling it mentally I know that it was good for my body!

So I decided to go for a bike ride on Sunday. My legs were feeling good even though I had a demanding run the day before. I was not sure how far I was going to ride but to be on the safe side I provisioned enough for a 50 mile ride. (A couple of granola bars.)

I set out on the bike and I was not into it but I was going to shake it out. There was a strong head wind that I was pushing through. On the bright side the sun was shinning and the weather cool - just about perfect. I was travelling at a good clip and blew past several runners and bikers. I quickly decided that I was only going to do a quick 20 mile ride. My heart rate was not reading on my exercise watch so I had to restart it. That blew the opportunity to do a time trial. I like to race against my best times. They are not always comparable (ie. wind, temperature, trace congestion, etc.) but I do enjoy comparing today against my best.

Well the 20 miler changed to a 12 miler and I turned around Epley. I was a little demoralized.

Later in the afternoon Jodie was going for a run. I almost never run with her - when you run with her she feels that you are competing and she can not run at her pace. Anyway, she let me run with her. I raced her to the end of the street and told her to hurry up - lol - that was a joke.

I ran at her pace and at about the 2 mile mark my Achilles tendon started to get tight and hurt. This happened a couple of weeks ago when I switched to a new pair of shoes (New Balance). I had not experienced any pain for about a week and I am not sure why this came back. We ended up with a 4 mile run.

Today, I rode in on the bike - cold and windy (tomorrow the low is 33). Still a lot of discomfort in the tendon. I decide to stay off the foot and only do strength training at lunch. I never follow a plan and attempted my usual Monday routine. I started the 'Alpine Trail' at max 8.5MPH and 12 incline for 45 minutes (last week was 40 minutes).

After the first hill (20 minutes) my foot was aching. I stopped the machine. The rest of the session was chin ups, pull up, back and abs.

The ride home I felt great even though the wind was strong.

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