On the move

2/24/09 - Yoga and Bike

#1 - Yoga
I have the most amazing fortune to work in a place that promotes and supports physical activity. Not only does my favorite boss allow me to bend my schedule around my training, but UCSC offers a host of FREE fitness classes during the week to it's staff. Being one to never miss a bargain, I capitalize on these free moments. Lucky me, two a week squeeze right into my training schedule.

Yesterday afternoon, instead of my normal ritual of heading to the beach with my packed lunch (I know, life is good), I spent an hour stretching, twisting, and exhaling in a wonderful yoga class. Yesterday's class particularly impacted all my little muscles that had been twisted into balls with my incessant coughing. Now, I have no more cough, and no more knots in my hips and back! By the end of class, I felt like a limp noodle, and was slowly drifting off to sleep in the corpse pose. What a joy!

#2 - Bike

After work, it was time for some more serious work! I was slated to head over to Spin Class, but all of the trainers were reserved. A trainer is a device that holds the back wheel of your own bike in place, so that you can ride in-doors. It's such a great device, one of the many things I wish I had thought of first! It's really nice for those of us training, because you can do an hour or so workout on your own bike. Great way to get acquainted with it, without any risk of falling off!

At any rate, no trainers meant it was time to hit the road, or cause serious risk to others in our spin class! Cristy met me at my house and we braved our first inner-city bike ride. We tried to head out into the country, which is really easy where I live, but realized that we were poorly lit! It was about the time where I was at the bottom of a hill, looking for Cristy, calling for her, and finally I headed back up the hill to find her, that I realized we needed quite a bit more visibility! If I couldn't see her, then cars could definitely not see her! We probably only got to ride a total of 6 miles, but thought it was better to head back than to chance getting hit by a car.

We did have some great moments though. In that short amount of time, we practiced a lot of our skills, including clipping-in, hand signals, wiping glass from our tires to prevent flats, calling out obstructions, hills, speeding downhill, and coming to an abrupt stop! I'm pretty sure that even though we didn't go too far, this is some great and essential practice!

2/25/09 - Swim and Core

#1 - Swim
This morning my alarm went off at 5:30am, and the first thing I thought was "I'm late!" Thankfully I wasn't, I was right on time to head over to our local pool for a morning workout. I met Cristy at the pool at 6:00am, and we prepared to hit the cold waters before the sun was even up! I jumped right in to find the water cold, and my previous experience with morning swims as a child kicked in, and I was swimming without even thinking. I felt bad because I hadn't even discussed our workout with Cristy until after I had a good number of warm up laps under my belt, but I'm sure she figured out that the best way to get warm is to get moving.

I was worried about waking up so early to workout, but swimming doesn't have the same toll on me as pushing a run out. In swimming, you get to elongate the body and stretch your arms and legs as tall as you can go. It was soothing and invigorating all at the same time.

After warm-up, we started our workout with a series of 50m drills. These drills help focus on body position within the water. Next was 6 100's (4 laps=100m) with 15 seconds rest. I felt great and threw in another for good measure. 200 pull, another 50 for fun, and a 200 cool down. Through it all, we watched the sun rise over Santa Cruz, and walked out of the pool having swam over 60 laps before 7:00am!

#2 - Core and Strengthening

Tonight we boogie down in what we've come to coin as our "booty camp." We meet up with a trainer who loves, and I don't just mean he likes doing, no, he loves squats. He talks about them, he demonstrates them, he admires and calls out when someone has perfect form, and more than anything else, we DO them! This is an hour work-out of strengthening and core, set-up to keep our heart rates moving. Lots of squats (you guessed it!), weighted squats, lunges, resistance work, one armed push ups, military push ups, planks, weights, stairs... all in good fun I say!

I know, this really isn't a necessary part of our Tri training, but I just can't say no to it. I feel stronger every week with the weight lifting, and I've got to admit, those squats seem to be doing something very special to my backside!