Cycling, Fitness and Other Things
Middle-Aged Man
Ride – Home from Work
01232 days
This was not an exciting ride. I got from work to home in 38 minutes for a distance of 16.57km (10.4 miles). The ride seem hard and the wind was up. I just felt tired. The overall speed average was 26.1 kph (16.21 mph).
Ride to Work
01232 days
It was cool this morning and it was dark. This is the first ride that I had to use my head lamp. Being cool and such, it was hard to get going. I did not petal that hard because my legs felt heavy. Overall, I did about 16.2 MPH average.
Run – Lake Buena Vista Bakersfield
11234 days
My church had a weekend camping event. We met at Lake Buena Vista in Bakersfield. On Saturday afternoon, I decided to go for a run, I did not sleep well being the first night. I wanted to run a 5K, but I have not run that distance in sometime. I am planning to run a couple of 5K’s coming up, so I need the distance. Since we brought our dog “Mr. Chip”, with us camping and he is a way too excited with all the people and other dogs, I decided to take him with me. I do not like to run with my dog, since on occasion he will dart in front of me and I have to slow down or stop. He was not so bad this time. I wanted him to run and hopefully be tired and that would mellow him out. BTW, It did not help him.
The run took me 31:23 to run the 5K. I wanted a slow pace and I got it. The pace was good for me. I ran the first 1/3 on a concrete path, the other 2/3′s I ran on grass and dirt. The run was not too hard and I am not sore. Tuesday night, I hope to run that distance again.
Ride – Godd, Lake Elizabeth, Highland, back to Clay’s House
01240 days
I got a chance to ride with Clay Patten on Sunday morning before church. He likes to do hills, and I like going down hills. He hammers the up hills, while I just prod alone. He is about 30 lbs lighter and much stronger, so it is good for me to be challenged. Overall, the ride was very good. It felt good. I was tired after and that is all good. We rode about 25m/39km in 1:38. The weather was perfect. I wish all of my rides were this comfortable.
I recently tried to change my cranks from 182mm to 172.5mm, but there appears not so easy to get. My bike is over 10 years old and the bracket is funky. What I did not think about was just changing my small front chainring. I plan to make that change. That should help me with less torque and more cadence. I noticed when I was riding behind Clay, his cadence was higher when he was on his third cog off his granny gear, while I was on my granny.
Run – to H Avenue to Starbucks (8:47 pace)
01243 days
Today marks my fastest two mile pace. I ran at starting around 10:00am and it was about 86 degrees, which is warmer outside than I prefer. It was a hard run and it was tiring. However, it is my fastest pace to date at 8:47 per mile. That is 11 seconds faster per mile than my previous best time.
Tonight’s Run (8:58 pace)
01246 days
Tonight marks the first time that I ran under a nine minute mile. I ran tonight at a 8:58 pace, beating my last run by two seconds. I felt I was running faster and I expected to beat my time by 10 seconds, because I felt that good. Or at least contrasting how I felt from Sunday’s run, which was really hard on me. Tonight I was not that labored. However, it all felt good because it was at night and 70 degrees. I eat an hour before the run, stretched well. My left knee hurt just prior to starting, but no real pain when I ran. Normally, a lot things hurt prior to running, it is my body telling me that it does not want to do this stuff.
Today’s Run
01248 days
Today, being Sunday morning and it is my slowest day of the week, I wanted to get out and run. I have not run since last Tuesday night. I was going to run my normal two miles from my street up to Avenue H back past my street to Starbucks.
Today, I was so not motivated to run, I still feel very tired. But, I started at 7:30am with some treadmill work, to warm up, followed by some stretching. I got out and ran at 8:00 am. The run was very hard on me. I wanted to stop but having my GPS on keeps me going. The results on the GPS makes it hard to stop. I did stop to walk twice (believe it or not) for a short moment, but the guilt was too much and I started running again.
I figured today would be a terrible day to record, but I ran hard and my breathing was labored. I guessed that my pace would be between 9:15 and 9:30, but to my surprise it was 9:00 exactly. I was running fast and that is why I was so labored. Today’s result’s is the fastest to date. Here is my motionbased results.
Ride – 29 Miles
01248 days
Clay Patten and I talked about riding together, and we want to do the AV Fall Century in October. Clay is a machine. He is very very fit, while I am a guy with some form of fitness that is clearly really different than Clay’s.
For the ride, I met Clay at his house and rode to Munz Ranch road, over to Lake Elizabeth road, and over Godde hill back to his house.
This was the first time I rode up Godde. Clay being the fit machine, actually push me up some of the 1.2 miles of hill. Man, I feel so not fit around him. I will confess, that I was not ready for the ride. I did not feel well, my stomach and head were not in the game. With all of the hours at work and things going on, I was emotionally tired, which relates to being physically tired. The heat (over 100 degrees) did not help, nor not eating (stomach was a mess) prior to the ride.
Overall the ride was fun, It was an average of 13.9 pace. It should have been in the 15-17 pace, but we will try again next week?
Run – Avenue H
01253 days
Tonight I wanted again to run from the house to Avenue H. I ran this path last Saturday and Sunday. Teri wanted to run at Joe Walker Middle School. I am not a big fan of running in circles. I won out, we will run done the street. I eat 1-1/2 hour before and we set out around 9:00pm. I warmed up on the treadmill and did some stretching. Teri did not want to run by herself. She does not like me running in front of her. So, I gave her a four minute head start. I set my timer on my watch and turned on the GPS and started to run. I felt pretty good and I did not pass Teri but finished behind her by about 100 feet. So the four minute head start is about right.
I ran at 9:04 pace, my best ever on this route. I am still looking to beat the nine minute pace.
Run – Home to H Avenue (day 2)
01255 days
Today, I stretched and went running. My knees felt a little sore, but It was a good run. My breathing was much better then yesterday when it seemed so much more labored. I thought I was holding back until the very end, where I was going add in my kick. I ran well, felt it was my best run for this little circuit, but when I processed the results, it was slightly off from yesterday. My pace was 9:21 (yesterday was 9:16). I am bummed, but, oh well.
