Snow!

On christmas day Karen and I went for a short run in the snow. Its been hard to fit in full workouts with the weather we had, but we figured a short one is better than none at all :).


a snowman we built in the back yard.

Snow!

Extreme Seattle weather has put a bit of a damper on our training. Last monday night our outdoor running practice switched to circuit training (it was about 20 degrees outside). Wednesday every single school in the area closed because of snow. and by snow I mean the ANTICIPATION of snow. We didn't get a flake of snow, but everyone was terrified we would, and everything closed, and thus swimming was cancelled as the pool was closed.
Thursday the snow then dumped down, and we got about 3 inches by friday. Which then froze as the temperatures dropped, making biking and running for Saturdays practice pretty hard. Bikes and ice don't really play well.
(unlike snow and Boomer - see below).



Then Saturday at about 3pm, it started snowing again. And this time it came down long and hard. By Sunday we had a few inches. Boomer Kyle and I went for a quick run in downtown Bellevue park through the snow. And by Sunday night we had over 10 inches of snow.

So basically, most of my week has been spent admiring our weather, and not much training. I'm trying to get in a few trainings, to keep in shape. I set up my bike trainer tonight, and put in 40 minutes on it, but it doesn't really compare to outside riding. Suppose the holidays our trainings often taper down...

So Happy holidays everyone! Hope ya'll say warm and dry, and find some creative ways to get some miles and yards in.

The excersize gods are against me

Last week I had a pretty good week - workout wise - in 7 days I fit in two runs, one strength, and two swims. The goal is to do two of each each week - and I finally realize the reason I've struggled to fit them all in, is that is 8 workouts a week. So if I take a rest day, I need to double up twice! I need to work on a schedule I can keep up week after week.

But this week the weather is not helping! Sunday we showed up to do the 12 ks of christmas race (the 5k version) in kirkland at 9am in the morning (after "partying" till 4 am the night before), only to find out it was cancelled due to icy roads. (Though my dog still won the costume competition as "dreidle dog", the only jewish dog competing)



Monday outdoor running was cancelled due to temperatures in the 20s (in seattle!) so we did indoor circuit training instead. Which was pretty good, except not quite as hard as xfit.

Tuesday, I decided to try the indoor biking at East side multi sports - instead of biking into work. Then get a call at 2pm saying its cancelled. To be fair, I was worried about biking to work, due to black ice, and freezing temperatures... But now I missed my bike ride for the week...

And now today, Wednesday, swimming tonight is cancelled, cause all the schools are closed for a snow day. Oh, did I mention we have no snow?? Just a scary weather forecast?

Saturday biking outside may also be cancelled... due to icy weather... sigh.

So this week is going a bit rough, but hopefully I'll get in a few workouts.

Miles since kickoff:
Swim: 5500 yds
Bike: 40 miles
Run: 28.05 miles

Bike commuting: lessons learned part two

Last week I learned some lessons about what to wear, and how to lock up my bike.

This week my big lesson was bus times. I planned on biking to the bus Tuesday morning, but didn't check bus times till 8:45 as I was getting ready to leave. I see there is a 9:50 bus, and a 9:09. Ugh. So I raced out of the house, and down the hill - I was glad to finally be dressed correctly for the weather. But of course I missed that 9:09 bus by a few minutes... However I then got super lucky and caught one of the out of service buses across the bridge! Which was exciting.
It left me with another 3 mile ride on the other side of the bridge, but that was good for me.

So now for future reference, I should look at bus times the night before. Hmm I thought I had more interesting things to post in the entry, but apparently not. Sorry it was boring :).

Back to Back

I did another set of back to back work-outs tonight, and now I'm tired. At Crossfit, we did "Barbara" which was one of the hardest workouts I've done, even though I had to leave early, so I didn't do it all.

Barbara:
20 pullups
30 pushups
40 situps
50 squats
5 rounds!!

I only did 4, due to time. And I did the pullups in a rubber band - no way I can do 100 real pull ups right now. At the end of the workout, I was so tired that lifting up a dixie cup of water felt super heavy...

Then I drove across the lake to running practice w/ the team. We did interval training - run 5 minutes at a faster than comfortable pace, then 2 minutes recovery, 4 times. I did better at this then I expected (I thought I'd be super tired after xfit). Though I 'm sure I would have been faster had I not done that right before.

Dinner when I got home tasted soooo good.

Dressing for the weather

My most recent challenge is figuring out how to dress for the weather, especially when biking. Thursday I biked down our giant hill, to Fremont, where we work from occasionally. I looked out the window in the morning, and the sun was shining, and the sky was blue, and I was so excited by the weather, so I just went out in my jeans (w/ a leg rolled up to avoid gears), and a sweat shirt. Well. It turned out it was like 40 degrees. And that when you go downhill fast, on a bike, the air feels even colder! I got there (only 1.5 miles) and my hands and leg (w/ the jeans rolled up) where quite numb!

Then in the evening, the sun had set already, and I was worried it would be even colder. So I bundled up, w/ extra layers, and my hood up and under my helmet, and set out, to climb up the hill. Shockingly, I got warm and sweaty pretty fast going uphill, and had to take off layers... sigh. I guess next week I'll be a little more prepared.

In other news, I'm proud, because Saturday I went running in the cold, instead of shopping w/ my family.

The Bike/Bus compromise

Yesterday I tried a new way of commuting. I biked about 1/2 way to work, and then hopped on a direct bus across the bridge. And it was pretty amazing.

When I bike the entire way to work, I have to go a lot longer route (to hit the brige w/ the bike lane), and it takes me close to 1.5 hours to get in, and even longer to get home, due to the route. So its pretty hard to make that big a time commitment very often, and to get up early enough to make it into work on time.

But this bike bus compromise - actually takes me about the same time as driving! And its even faster if there is traffic. I only have to bike about 4 miles to the bus stop. Officially that is barely even a workout, but I figure its fast enough I can actually do that a few times a week, and 8 miles a day, is way better than nothing! And otherwise getting in a bike ride during the week is hard, stupid sun going down early.

So I'm excited to try and do it more in the next few weeks. We'll see how I do.

Approxmiate Miles since kickoff:
run: 23 miles
swim: 1800 m
bike: 30 miles

Thanksgiving

So, as I should have predicted, thanksgiving was about eating, and not so much about exercising. I got in a 2 mile walk, and a few shorter walks, but otherwise didn't do much active. But When I got home Sunday I jumped back into working out - I went to crossfit Sunday morning, went running Monday, and a little biking tuesday.

I haven't gotten in any oyo swims yet - but starting next week we are going to try to go to a masters swim at lunch. Now we have the plans, we just need to follow through. Ugh.