Birthday #43 workout extravaganza!

An excellent workout that so thoroughly used up all my vim that I had to eat a cookie just now in order to have the energy to write a post!

One of the great pleasures of this summer of exercise is that I got a coach - I haven't had one for a long time, I always have some mentors of one kind or another but I'd forgotten what a pleasure it is to have actual formal coaching. So I asked supercoach David Roche for a special birthday workout, and got this back:

Your mission is to touch Grant's tomb, check out the Central Park Zoo, see the Intrepid, and run up the Columbia steps. You decide how to connect them :)

I also wanted to make it to midday spin class and had a swim workout lined up as well, but I knew it would be unlikely that I'd really have energy for that still after doing the first two - indeed I had a short swim post-spin and will do a proper masters workout tomorrow.

Lounged in bed and didn't get out the door early enough to come home between - that was good, though, actually, as it makes it a more genuine continuous workout. Beautiful weather, but slightly hotter than I thought - should have been carrying water, I was fiendishly thirsty by the end.

Here is Grant's Tomb:

Here is the view from the top of the Low Library steps:

I have no picture for the zoo - I ran over to Central Park and then south along the east side of the park. Got near the zoo around the 1hr mark, stopped and bought a Gatorade and drank it while walking around off the clock trying to find a zoo building to photograph - realized after about 10 minutes that my poor sense of direction really just means I was going to have to let that one go! (I was there relatively recently and did indeed spend much time wandering around trying to find the actual entrance - then promptly forgot whatever I learned about how to find it....)
Then west to the Intrepid:

Increasingly thirsty - rather glad as Chelsea Piers finally hove into view. Total running time: 1:32, probably about 8+ miles? Brief regroup, and then SPIN!

I got to pick the workout since it was my birthday: I couldn't ask for a 43-minute climb, as it's only a 45-minute class and also it might KILL somebody, but what we had was very good: 3 x (4min climb, 3min sprints as :30 off, :30 on). I had a maniacal grin on my face throughout that caused Joanna to snap this picture:

No pictures, didn't happen (those are what I call "imaginary distance units," by the way, not miles or kilometers - somewhere between the two!):

Then just a very short swim so that I could call it an authentic swim-bike-run day: 500 yards as 100 swim, 100 kick, 2 x 100 drill-swim by 25 (front scull, fists), 100 swim strong with good form.

Bonus picture to make up for the missing zoo one, a portrait of the lovely and well-behaved service dog that accompanies its mistress to the pool pretty much every day:

It's a slightly strange summer in that I'm neither training for something epic nor in the middle of writing a book. Makes me feel rather guilty and underoccupied! But it is probably good for the soul not to be quite so busy and focused all the time....

1:32, c. 8+mi
:40 spin (3 x 7min as 4min climb, 3min sprints)
:15 swim (500 yards)