Spin!

Not easy getting out of bed this morning - it took me too long to fall asleep last night, and then as I was waking up I was in the thick of an unpleasant dream in which my two cats were somehow downtown at G's apartment rather than at home where they were supposed to be for incoming catsitter C, and one of the carriers I had was missing some pieces and the other one was just a sandwich-sized ziploc bag into which I was trying to fit little cat Mickey! Anyway,

:50 spin

Projections

Don't have much of a take on swim/bike fitness and heat acclimation this month as opposed to January of 2013 and 2014, but just took a quick look at prior year Aquabike times (I wasn't here for it last year) to get some kind of a sense:

2013: swim 51:03, bike 3:15:04, total race time 4:11:11
2014: swim 1:05:06 (very rough sea that year), bike 3:20:02, total race time 4:30:39

I suspect my bike fitness may be a bit worse but the superior equipment should compensate for that in terms of time on course. A lot of it depends on wind. Will prepare to be out there for 4.5hr total, it would take unusual conditions I think for it to be much longer than that? We will see, anyway!

Hot yoga!

Hot but very enjoyable today, which confirms my feeling that on this particular trip at least I should just stick to the 1hr class. Two things that augmented my enjoyment, one accidental/felicitous and one deliberate: the teacher forgot standing bow-pulling-pose (when I'm not in good hot yoga shape, I can pretty much either do standing head-to-knee or standing bow-pulling but not both!); and she also opened all the doors immediately following camel pose, which is extremely helpful for morale....

I really should swim later, that's the thing I've been deficient in this week. Shooting to go to masters swim tomorrow morning also and I suspect it will be more enjoyable/less onerous to get to if I have a short swim this afternoon first. (Also need to change tube on old bike and sub in the other pedals - it is my theory that I will like using that bike to get around more if I can ride it without being clipped in!)

1hr hot yoga!

Run!

Hmmmm, I really hate getting up in the morning so much, but it must be done if I want to run happily rather than unhappily outside here! Just did :40 as that is what I think I would have done if I'd hewed to original plan and gone to Wednesday Night Run Club (it is better to run in the morning, evening running will overheat me in a way that makes it harder to sleep). Anyway:

:40 as :10 easy, 10 x (1:00 hard, 1:00 walk), :10 easy

Hot hot yoga

As if to compensate for yesterday, hot yoga today was GRUESOMELY hot - the teacher left the heater on even for the second half of class which is not the usual thing here at all, and many of us were basically just flopped on mats! I had to lie down for both sets of the last two standing postures, that's fairly extreme - every time I stood back up to try again I felt extremely lightheaded!

(Factors: (a) just hotter than usual; (b) 1.25hr class rather than 1hr; (c) walked over in a hurry especially once I realized that rather than being fifteen minutes early I had spaced out and forgotten class starts at 10:30 rather than 10:45, I made it only in the nick of time!; (d) already did 2hr exercise.)

Anyway I still felt pretty good - my forearms weren't overheated in the way they feel when it's really really too hot, I think my HR was just jacked up right away due to earlier exercise. Making a note, though, to avoid the 1.25hr classes when possible and also not to think it's a good idea to do strength training earlier in the day and then hot yoga later!

1.25hr hot yoga

Upper body/spin!

Hmmmmm, conditions here are mighty propitious for a good SPA WEEK....

Was a little later getting to the gym than I intended, so had to split the strength workout into two and finish the second bit after spin, but that's fine I think.

1hr spin
.75hr upper body as follows (Josh has given me two upper days this week and only one lower due to high other workload and also the general mess my knee/leg has been in):

(1) 5 x 6 x 85 bench
(2) 4 x 10 lat pulldown
(3) circuit x 4 on 1:00 rest: (a) incline dumbbell bench 8 @ 20 (b) single-arm row 10 @ 25
(4) front raise 4 x 10 @ 8
(5) rope triceps pushdown 5 x 10

Happy hot yoga!

Hahahaha, it was MUCH less hot than it is supposed to be, maybe even only 98 or so - I love it, that's the perfect temperature! I would do hot yoga every day if I could find a heterodox studio where they allowed as how 100F is more appropriate than 105F+ for many. Anyway, great class, I enjoyed every minute of it and didn't have to sit anything out.

Spa week #1 is off to a thoroughly satisfactory start! (Thursday through Sunday were practice days, now I have a full fortnight - have been having slight wish for spa MONTH, but really it is for the best, I am looking forward to the spring semester and I know that by the time it starts I will be impatient again for more stimulation.)

1hr not-so-hot yoga

Run!

I was ten minutes short of goal, I turned around ten minutes early and could only eke out ten extra at the end rather than twenty, but it was pretty good otherwise. I HATE GETTING UP EARLY! But it must be done if I want to run outside, and running long on the treadmill is so dreadful (and ALSO very warm). This morning it was actually a relatively humane temperature outside....

1:30 as 20:00 easy, then 10 x (2:00 hard, 2:00 walk), 10 x (1:00 hard, 1:00 walk), 10:00 cooldown

Longish ride!

Hahahaha, when I haven't done a real outdoor ride for a while (or even when I have) I am consumed with dread leading up to it - I was sleeping very lightly and fitfully, I think I checked the time every ten minutes between three am and six! However as soon as I am actually riding it is not at all bad, and when I am done I am suffused with a sense of satisfaction and enjoyment. That said, I really should have ridden longer - but very tight right lower back and impendingly agonizing left toe pain conspired with my perennial "quit while I'm ahead" mentality re: cycling to call it at 2:30 rather than doing the full projected three hours. (I had reached my pickup point and couldn't quite bring myself to do one more out and back.)

Totals: 2:18:46, 36.62mi, 15.8mph avg. Translated, this means that my 56-mile ride for the aquabike in two weeks is going to be SOMEWHAT horrible - I concluded that I have to ride quite a bit harder so that I'm not on the machine for so long, as the limit has much more to do with mechanical tolerance for body position (feet especially!) than with fitness as such. Will cap at top of Friel zone 3 and expect to ride pretty much fully in that zone.

Hot hot yoga!

Just the 1hr version today, which seemed considerably more manageable (also I think this teacher is a little more humane in the matter of heat in the second half of the class). IT IS GOOD - I forgot how much I like how it makes me feel. Seems especially beneficial right now as I have been ridiculously tight and sore in various spots for last 6 weeks or so - back is always very tight, this sore knee and terribly tight quads etc., so I think it is possibly even more to the point on this trip than keeping up with powerlifting workouts.

1hr hot yoga

Run!

I was actually awake really early but I had an aversion to getting up and out of the door! (I piggyback on B.'s early-to-bed schedule when I'm here, it's mighty convenient.) This run was on the training schedule, it is a good one for the warm climate:

:40 as 15:00 easy, then 10 x (:20 hard, :40 walk), then 15:00 easy

Sea swim!

Didn't manage to pick up reassembled bike yesterday before store closed for half-day, and the other bike had a tire that deflated quickly after I pumped it up - not a huge job to replace the tube, but I couldn't quite be bothered, and then not surprisingly I didn't get up early enough to run before it got light!

(We rang in the Irish New Year at Fidel Murphy's and were in bed by 9pm or so, but a fair amount of alcohol was consumed nonetheless and may have impaired sleep quality.)

But I had a very nice swim just now in the sea - there is quite a bit of cloud cover, the water wasn't too hot. I like swimming!

(Swimming is a technique-based sport, but it doesn't hurt to have back/arm/core strength - I am really looking forward to the aquabike thing in two weeks!)

.5hr sea swim!

Hot yoga!

The 1.25hr class, and that was at least a quarter of hour (possibly half an hour) more heat than I really had in me! The standing sequence was surprisingly OK, I sat out a couple bits at the end but didn't feel queasy or even really overwhelmed. But the mat sequence never let up - IT WAS JUST TOO HOT. Ah, if only hot yoga would be about ten degrees cooler, it would be perfect!

I NOW PRONOUNCE IT OFFICIALLY SPA WEEK!....

1.25hr hot yoga

Warm run!

Made it to Cayman yesterday on three hours sleep. Took advantage of 1/2 tablet (I don't always have sleeping pills, but they are occasionally very useful) to go to bed EARLY - like, early - and got up early to run. Couldn't quite get out of bed/out the door as I early as I meant to, it was getting light by the time I was ten minutes in, but it is much better than nothing. Figuring out what else I am going to do today - the server I'm on blocks the yoga studio schedule, but that is a distinct possibility....

:40 warm easy run

Locomotive run/unsatisfactory bench

Hmmmm, not very satisfied with either of those, but perhaps it was just a day when getting it done is all you can hope for!

Jogged down very slowly (it was nice, damp and cool but not actually raining and no wind, not too many people out there), with right glute-hamstring attachment feeling very tender. (Knee was curiously fine.) Then the upper-body workout was a bit of a disaster! I feel like I forgot how to bench (and in fact I suspect that if I look back through the records of this training cycle, I haven't been doing it as regularly as in prior cycles - I know I missed at least a few, and I didn't have any Friday second bench sessions either). I can do better than this!

Finally did find my groove (literally) on the narrow-grip set (Josh was convinced on the first ones that it was a technical failure rather than a strength failure, but in either case it's frustrating!). Knee was acting up, Josh pressed it painfully but helpfully but I'm grumpy that I've left it so long without doing anything, and I can't really do anything about it while I'm in Cayman. Might try and find some sport massage or physio - at this point I think most of the discomfort is from things being horribly tight as a result of overcompensation.

Resolved: lift more in the first few months of 2016 than I did in the last couple months of 2015! (EVIL HOLIDAYS BREAK MY HAPPY ROUTINE.)

Anyway, bench session:

A couple singles at 115 (work set should have been 3-4 x 2-3 @ 115-120 but I JUST DIDN'T HAVE IT)

Narrow-grip bench: 2 x 10 x 75

Single-arm rows: 4 x 10 x 42.5

Banded: 150 abs, 100 face-pull, 100 triceps

1hr upper body
plus about 1:08 VERY SLOW jogging....