Friday's Interval Run

I ran intervals this evening at the gym. I did 9 intervals with the fastest a bit below eight MPH, of course that did not last long, about forty five seconds. Somewhere near the middle, I ran one interval for two minutes at seven MPH. I think this is helping my speed. I need to sign up for a race and see.

Distance: 3.15 miles
Time: 40 minutes

Tuesday's Tempo Run

I did a tempo run this evening. First I warmed up for ten minutes, then I ran for 20 minutes with a slightly increasing pace, the first ten minutes was at 6.1 MPH, the next five minutes was at 6.3 MPH and the last five minutes as at 6.5 MPH. Between each increase I paused for water. At the end, I sprinted, which lasted about two minutes and was at 7.5 MPH. Finally, I had a cool down for about five minutes.

Time: 40 minutes
Calories: 400
Distance; 3 miles

Sunday Morning Bike Ride

For my Sunday morning bike ride I rode over to the Mesa Drive hill. It's a good hill for working your heart and legs. Today I did one repeat, in the coming weeks I hope to increase that to about five repeats. Then go over a little way and start doing the Far West hill. It looks longer and steeper. Although, according to my Garmin, this hill was approaching eighteen percent grade for a short distance.

Thursday's Intervals

Tonight was interval night at the gym. I ran for forty minutes and did eight intervals. I started at six MPH and worked up to seven MPH, I did two intervals at seven MPH than started working back down to six MPH.

Last night, after I got home, I was exhausted. I think it is all the running I have been doing. I have had three nights of intense exercise. Hopefully, tonight's spinning will do different muscles, so it will give the running muscles some time off. If not I can sleep late tomorrow, and take it easy.

I was trying to watch the Democratic debate on TV at the gym last night but the first treadmill was not very close to the TV so about interval 3 I move down one section, where it was a lot easier to watch CNN. But, on the new treadmill, I could hear Hillary and the commentator, but I could not hear Barack. So after doing about five more intervals I finished and went home to watch the debate. Luckily, we had the debate recorded.

Long Easy Run At the Gym

Long easy run at the gym this evening. Ran for 1 hour at 4.5 MPH and covered a little less than 4.5 miles. It took several treadmills before I found one that I liked -- the audio seems bad on the North side the building. I watched CNN getting ready for the Texas debate with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Tempo Run at the Gym

I had a tempo run at the gym this evening. I ran for 10 minutes to warm up then ran at 6.1 MPH for 10 minutes, then I ran two intervals, the first at 6.5 MPH and the second at 7.0 MPH. I felt very good about the run this evening, I felt I could have continued the 6.1 MPH rate much longer.

I did not have my heart rate monitor this evening.

Weekly Summary

My blood pressure was:



My morning exercises:

Sunday Morning Bike Ride

This morning about 7:00 AM I rode the Trek road bike down to watch the AT&T Austin Marathon. I arrived about 30 minutes late, so I decided it would be OK to ride along the route, a block or two away, with occasional visits over to the main route so I could watch the marathon runners pass. I seemed to always be watching the people in the 3 to 4 hour pace group.

Of course, there were large sections that I missed: I did not go south of the river, and I went on the west side of Camp Mabry (this was a very hilly option with a lot of cars going this way to avoid the runners), and I didn't go north to Anderson Lane either. I cut across town on North Loop and caught the race on the way back down towards town. From there the riding was easy, downhill and the wind to my back. Another nice thing was that the police had the roads blocked off, so there was no stopping for stop lights. Also by this time the runners had thinned out so there was no problem sharing the road with them.

On the stretch just east of the Capitol I was following another cyclist, about 100 yards behind, and suddenly he jumped of his bike and went over to a runner who had collapsed on the road. A band that was playing along the side of the road started calling for EMS to come and help, and several people from along the sidelines came out to help the runner.

He was attempting to get back up then he would run a little ways and fall. The people helping him would catch him so he wouldn't fall hard. I was trying to decide what to do... I decided to continue and see if I could find some emergency medical people, since I didn't see any coming and there were plenty of people helping already.

At the top of the next hill there was a medical tent and I went in and told the staff about the collapsed runner and they started racing in his direction. I asked some of the remaining people if I should go back with them, and they said no.

From that point it was just an easy downhill to the finish. Some time later I saw the guy that had collapsed. The bicyclist was still running with him. I'm not sure if the medical crew revived him or if he managed to get up and continued running before they got there.

I never did see Daniel or Andrea, the people I have been running with on Sunday. I did see Mike Muench, an Overwatch manager, at about mile six.

First Spinning Class at New Gym

I attended a spinning class tonight at the gym today. It felt really good and I am sure it will get me in a lot better shape for the biking season, and that's only a week or two away. (I have been getting email about the Tri-County Hill Hopper Sunday, February 24, 2008 in Round Top.)

The spinning class was a small group this evening, perhaps 10 people. (Unlike some nights where all the spinning bikes have people on them, and some of the other bikes in the gym have people riding to the beat of the spinning class.) Since this was my first time, the instructor helped me set up my bike. Unfortunately, I did not get her name. By the schedule it should have been Sarah but there were a couple of things that she said that made me think she was not the regular instructor. I hung around after the class to introduce myself but she was talking to someone else and eventually I left. I was bushed!

We did two sets of the following:

• Hill climb at about fifty percent resistance. This lasted for about two minutes.
• A set of four intervals with varying resistance and time.
• A long intense sprint at about 70 percent resistance.

I did pretty good at first but toward the end my cadence had dropped to about half what it was the first go round.

Several of the differences between here and my former gym was that my former gym has a separate spinning room that aways felt cold - which is good for cycling - and they have a lot of fans that the instructor turns on about ten minutes into the class.

I was late getting to the class, so I didn't get my heart rate monitor on, so I have no graph this evening. It was raining on the ride to the gym, which had the traffic going slower than normal and I forgot my cell phone when I left the building so I had to go back in and get it.

Long Easy Run At the Gym

I did a long easy run at the gym this evening. I ran for a hour, burned 550 calories and covered a little over four miles. For most of the way, I had the speed set at five MPH. Every ten minutes I would slow down for a drink of water, then for the last several minutes I set the speed up to six MPH.

Here is my heart rate for the run:

Tuesday's Interval Run

Tonight I run two and a half miles on the treadmill at the North Pure Gym. It was my first time at the north facility. The facility was really nice, much larger and the was not as crowded.

I jogged on the treadmill for forty five minutes increasing the speed for one minute than decreasing it to about 3.5 MPH. Each increase was a little faster than the previous, starting at about 6 MPH and continuing to about 7.5 MPH. I ran the 7.5 interval twice than decreasing the speed of each interval until the speed reached six MPH. I was hoping to extend my last interval for ten minutes, however I gave up after two minutes and walked the remaining time.

Some time in the near future I need to go out and do the trail. I was planning to this evening but I was too tired so I just went to the dressing room and left.

In conclusion, I did not feel as good as the last time I did intervals. That time each interval was two minutes, this one was one minute. I think it was running in the new location on new machines. [Later: I was thinking about it and I think I had the incline set to two percent. Normally I have the incline set to zero. There, I don't feel quit so bad!]

Here is my HR chart.

New Tires for the Pickup and other Repairs

Today has been quite a day. Last night on the way home, I noticed that the ride was getting much worse. There has been a vibration coming from the front of the pickup for some time; normally it happened when I got over 65 MPH, but last night it was happening above 55 MPH.

When I took it in a couple of weeks ago to get the oil changed, I asked the shop to take a look at the front end. They said the front tires were separating and I would have to take the pickup somewhere else, since they no longer dealt with tires. I looked at the tires and they had a lot of tread on them, so I put off taking the pickup to a tire repair place. (The tires do have 50 to 60 thousand miles on them. I would like them to get more but 50 thousand miles seems like a good number of miles.)

I took the pickup over to the Firestone dealership near here and had them inspect the front end of the pickup. They came to the same conclusion as the previous shop, so I had the tires replaced. They were not able to get to the repair until this morning. A little while later I got a second call from the shop, saying that the brakes needed repairing also.

So the short task at the tire shop ended up requiring about 6 hours and 700 dollars. I guess I will have to keep my old pickup another several years after putting that much money into it! It still does pretty good for a 12 year old pickup.

Tonight I took it for a test drive to the NXNW Brewery and Restaurant, then went to the gym. It handled real well on the freeway at 65 MPH. I had forgotten how nice it is when everything is working right.

Weekly Summary

My blood pressure and weight for the week:



My aerobic exercise for the week were as follows:



My morning exercises were:

Thursday's Intervals

Tonight I ran intervals on the treadmill at the gym. It went pretty well, my fastest interval was close to 8 MPH, I'm not sure how long I held that speed, I had worked up to that speed by increasing the speed every 30 seconds by about a half mile per hour. I probably held the speed for about one minute, I could hardly breath at that rate.

Toward the end I held one interval at 6.1 miles per hour for about ten minutes. Given a couple more weeks and I should start see some real results. :-) And all this with out a nose bleed.

I was hoping to go to spinning class last night but I was worried about my nose so I took the day off.

I did have one problem tonight, for some reason, I could not get the enter button on my Garmin to work. After fiddling with it for a little I pressed start and it started recording. Then about 10 minutes into the run I noticed that the unit was saying that no satellites were available and it ask if I was running indoors. So I pressed enter and it worked. It seemed to work fine after that. I hope this is not a sign of things to come. I sure like my Garmin.

Tuesday's Tempo Run

I ran for thirty minutes on the treadmill at the gym tonight, the pace was set at six MPH or ten minutes per mile. I was able to hold this pace most of the way, I slowed down three times and the last seven minutes I ran at 5.5 MPH.

Unfortunately, my nose started bleeding, and it was gushing profusely all the way to the bathroom area. After I got in there, it took about 10 minutes to get the nosebleed stopped.

I do distinctly remember that I used my nasal gel this morning, which is supposed to prevent this sort of thing from happening. Maybe I should use something stronger. Bag Balm? Just before I exercise? Hmmmm.... Something to think about.

Here is my heart rate during the run:

Weekly Summary

My blood pressure for this week was as follows:



My cardio exercise was as follows:



My average weight for the week was 191.8 with 6 samples.

Sunday's Easy Run

Ran 4 miles today with Daniel and his wife, Andrea at Brushy Creek Park in Cedar Park, Tx. The weather was warm and humid.

Daniel and Andrea have been training for the Austin Marathon in two weeks. They have started their taper and according to them, during this period all your aches and pains start showing up. Also, the last several weeks have been particularly intense and Andrea has been suffering from a bug. So they were not interested in running hard this morning. Actually, they even walked part of the way.

Andrea's mom did not come today. Last weekend she ran the 3M half-marathon so I guess she is taking some time off.

Friday Night Workout

This afternoon I took off work early to have my VO2max tested at the gym. I had carefully worked an extra hour each night this week so I could go get the time for the exam. When I got there the lady that was to give me the exam said that the equipment was not working, then when she found out that it was working she said I was not signed up for the exam and she was not qualified to give it to me. I had talked to the person that signed me up at the gym quite a bit about getting the VO2max exam. I'm not sure how it got missed. Well, the bottom line is that I didn't get the VO2max test.

While I was at the gym I ran into Joe, a co-worker I used to work with nearly 20 years ago. We probably talked for 10 minutes before I went for my planned exam then after the exam didn't happen, we talked again for about an half an hour. Just catching up on old times -- hearing tales about mutual friends, on what we are doing, and what has happened to our families.

After that I got on a treadmill and ran for half an hour. I set the speed at 5.5 MPH and the grade was varying from 0% to 8%. Several times thoughout the run I bumped the speed up to 6.5 MPH. But when I the slope increased I lowered the speed back down.

On a different note, I received e-mail today that Tom, the pastor from our church, and George will be riding in the Hill Country Ride for AIDS. It's very tempting to sign up, but you have to raise $500. Which seems like a lot. Especially, if a group of us from work do the Tour De Cure at about the same time. I will have to talk to Tom and see if a slow rider (13 - 15 MPH) would fit into their team. It's really pretty country that they ride through and I don't think there are many hills.