My Butt Hurts!

Welcome to week two of the Old Guy. Only 43 weeks to go, hooray! This post will be a typical weekly update on my past week; how it went, did I hit my goals, and a “Thumbs up, thumbs down” section where I discuss the best and worst parts of the week. What can I say about week 2 except, “My butt hurts!”, because it does. I was scheduled to start the week with an 11 mile cycle but turned out that I rode 14 on Labor day (see my LABOR! Day post for more on that). You know, I used to see those guys wearing the spandex bike shorts and thought, “I would never wear those!” Yea, well… I would have given anything for a pair at the end of my 14 mile ride. Anything with padding would have been welcome. As a true beginner, I have very basic equipment, including clothing. I can’t just run out and buy all the gear I need. I have to build it up just my training schedule. I cannot wait until I get my bike shorts, but fixing the flat tires and buying a helmet were first on my list . I was so sore that day that I wasn’t sure if I would make my scheduled run the next day. My training schedule calls for slight improvement each day of training, so overdoing it can really jeopardize the schedule. Look for training and nutrition posts in the coming weeks in addition to my weekly updates. They will be full of valuable information I have gleaned over the years as well as what I doing and eating now to prepare for the event. Back to the weekly… The day after my big ride on Labor day I was a little sore but not bad. I ran my scheduled 5.5 miles (see below) and my minutes/mile was pretty good for me. I was looking forward to Wednesday’s ride and had had a little different outlook on how would tackle the 14 mile ride (yes, even though I was only scheduled to ride 12 miles I never go backward). I did however start out at a slower pace in order to finish better. I ended up finishing the ride much easier than the previous ride although it took me a good 5 minutes longer (I hate going slower!). Thursday’s run was great; I ran the 5.7 miles that I was scheduled for and at a personal best speed! Watch out Donner- here I come! Friday’s ride was also good. I ended by adding approximately 2 miles to the ride and kept my original 15 MPH speed without near as much trouble as Monday had been. Progress is a beautiful thing.

September 1, 2008 - Cycle 15 mi - 61 minutes - 15 MPH
September 2, 2008 - run 5.5 mi - 56 minutes - 10.18 M/M
September 3, 2008 - cycle 15 mi - 65 minutes - 13.8 MPH
September 4, 2008 - run 5.7 mi - 54 minutes - 9.47 M/M- new personal best
September 5, 2008 - cycle 17 mi - 68 minutes - 15 MPH


Making all my weekly goals and sending invites to some of friends to follow my blog!


My killer hard seat on my Costco bike. Also my non-spandex, non-padded shorts I currently wear. Did I say I can't wait to buy bike shorts?

LABOR! Day

Here’s to a special edition of the Old Guy. I plan to post once a week, usually on weekends but since today is a Holiday, I figured I would take a few minutes to reflect on today’s ride. ugh! I figured since today is Labor Day and I didn’t have to go to work, I would spend my day laboring on my training schedule. I had 11 mile cycle on my list today, but figured I would take a new loop that totals 14 or so miles. The route is basically a square, 2 miles up, 5 miles across, 2 miles down and 5 miles back home. The 2nd half of all this is what I typically ride and I am used to the terrain. Since the route is relatively flat and my previous rides up to 10 miles have all been well accepted by my body…what the heck. Well, heck is what it turned out to be! The morning was beautiful, blue skies, small white clouds and stiff wind blowing around 20MPH. With all the fires we have had this year, and the fact we just came out of 109F weather last week, a windy 70 degree morning was very welcome. I felt so good and had been resting all weekend so I pushed the first 3-4 miles pretty hard uphill (maybe a few hundred feet in elevation) :P and didn’t really think about it. The ride felt great, a good cardio workout starting early with the climb through the north end of Redding and finally breaking into outskirts of town toward Airport road. (see the map below for detail) I slowly worked my way mostly uphill, endlessly it seemed to Knighton road where I could hit a short downhill section. Finally, I could see the signal in the distance announcing my arrival to the right-hand turn that would temporarily ease my suffering. I say suffering because in the last few hundred yards, my legs are starting to have issues with any uphill climb- no matter how small. When is this going to be over? Maybe I shouldn’t have taken this loop? Am I going to be too sore to run tomorrow? Is this going to throw off my meticulous schedule? **STOP** where is this negative thinking coming from? I am going to be fine and this obstacle will make me stronger! It always does. I am now heading up churn creek road, a familiar route for me, finally. Funny, I seem to be using much lower gears than usual :) how much slower is this going to be? I want to try and keep up my 14MPH pace. The last leg of my loop has a nice 100 yard step climb to prep me for the last 3 miles of the ride. It sure did its job- I am wiped! Finally home, I jump off my bike and prepare to jog a few yards to try and get used to what it is going to feel like during a transition in the triathlon. So I jump off my bike and I can’t feel my legs- whoa! Hold me up! Dang, I could barely walk let alone jog. It doesn’t matter, I jog anyway…for maybe 30 yards and return. Okay, I think I know what this is going to be like. I will handle it. Done! What a day on the bike- beautiful. Now we’ll have to see how well I run tomorrow. I think I have 5.3 miles on my schedule. I better get some sleep; the alarm is going off at 4:15am and its 10pm now.

Blessings,
Eric