Weekly Totals and Review, Dec. 27th - Jan 2nd.

This was kind of a crappy week.  Not enough sleep and bad food around the house sucked the energy out of me.  Still, I'm always glad that a "crappy week" can still total over 10 hours of solid training.  The highlight was learning to ride no-hands on the rollers.  I got pretty good at it and below is pic I shot after trying to play Angry Birds on the iPhone while riding.

So let's move on and check out the specifics.  As always, most of the workouts are hyperlinked to HR graphs so you can see the performance metrics. 

Totals:

Everything - 10.22 hours.

Cycling - 4:49 hours, 75.53 miles

Running - 4:27 hours, 28 miles

Sledgehammer - 1:06 hours

Monday AM - Sledgehammer Workout, 11 minutes.

Kind of a half-assed effort here. Not feeling it today. Need more heavy metal or something.

Monday Afternoon - 1 hour on rollers (NO HANDS!), 17.16 miles.

WOOHOO! I learned how to ride NO HANDS on rollers after watching and getting motivated by this vid by Holisticguru. It is such an awesome feeling! I started calling people and tweeting while I was doing it. It puts me in Zone two for the hour no problem. Super stoked.

Monday Evening - 1 hour barefoot run on treadmill, 6.05 miles.

Felt super stoked to be back into the start of a good week. Two a days on a Monday is good stuff. Started off easy and watched Colbert Report to get going. Nice! Barefoot felt good, too.afdf

Tuesday AM - 12 minutes with sledgehammer.

Had a tiny bit of trouble getting up, until I put iPhone Pandora station on death metal. That'll wake you up! A little slow getting going, but still nice. Noticing a little pain in right shoulder when working the delts, so I've started taking it easy on that problem spot.

Tuesday AM - 45 minutes on bike rollers, 11.94 miles.

Whoa, quads are blasted after yesterday's 1 hour no-hands roller ride. Today was painful in the most awesome way. Deep pain. Good pain. Found a nice groove of 2 minutes sitting, 2 minutes no-hands, 1 minute standing, repeat. Nice. Felt almost high for the hour after finishing.

Tuesday PM - 1 hour run on treadmill, 7.63 miles.

Did half barefoot, had to put on shoes second half because of the heat coming off the treadmill. "Heartbreaker" workout, hitting 140 bpm at midpoint and trying to raise it by 1 bpm every minute afterwards. Hit failure at 165 bpm and nearly 6 min/mile pace.

Wednesday AM - Sledgehammer workout.

No notes, so must've been fine.

Wednesday PM - 1 hour bike on rollers, 14.79 miles

Nice little zone 2 jaunt. Legs still hurt.

Saturday AM - Sledgehammer

Nice. :)

Saturday AM - 1:01 run, 5.7 miles.

Super easy run just to start the day. Forgot to pause the watch a couple of times while stopping to let Roxy pee.

Saturday PM - 1:03 bike on rollers, 15.11 miles.

Roller ride, doing 1 minute standing and 1 minute no hands out of every 5 minutes.  Repeat until done.

Saturday Noon - 54 minute run, 6.22 miles.

Nice and easy jog with Roxy. Slowed down the pace so she'd last the hour.

Sunday AM - Sledgehammer

Nothing new to note here, except that the SLAP tear in right shoulder is acting up. 99% sure that it's from doing the deltoid lifts. Gonna have to back off of that move for a while.

Sunday Noon - 1 hour bike on rollers, 16.53 miles.

Nice little ride on the rollers, staying in zone 2. Legs still blasted from the no-hands riding earlier in the week.

Sunday PM - 30 minute run, 3 miles.

Was planning on going a full hour, but the treadmill belt needed lube. After doing that, Kai started playing on it and got shot off the back into a wall and I had to take care of him for a bit. 30 minutes into the run, I was getting sleepy and decided to stop and hit the sack.

Who Makes the Best Running Buddy?

Rollers with No Hands! (Get Motivated!)

Have some fun with your cycling!  Give it a try! :)

How to Get Started with a Heart Rate Monitor

As always, follow the advice of your doctor. Blood pressure is a complicated issue and exercise is just ONE of the many ways that have to be considered and often used in combination with other methods to get you better!

Weekly Totals and Review, Dec. 20th Through 26th.

Oh man!  This week SUCKED!  Bad diet, bad timing, all that crap... But it's ok, there's always next week.  Let' dig up this bag of bones and see what we have:

Rarely seen workout move - "The Nutcracker"

Tuesday morning - Shovelglove for 15 minutes.

This is one of my favorite core workouts. Get as heavy a sledge hammer as you can handle and then do all kinds of full motion movements for about 15 minutes. I set a timer for 15 and then just go to town on it. This is the kind of stuff that puts on muscle and burns off fat. Love it. More info at www.shovelglove.com

Tuesday morning - 45 minute bike ride on rollers, 14 miles.

Was ramping up fine and then quickly noticed that my legs were still sore from the awesome workouts over the weekend. I hit LT much earlier than usual at around 140 bpm. I capped out at around 155, took a short break, and then hit it hard again to drive the pain home. Got off the bike and did shovelglove.com for the rest of the hour.

Tuesday Afternoon - Sledgehammer Workout, 15 minutes

Got home from work and set the timer for 15 minutes and cranked on the 16 lb. sledgehammer. Also did some pull ups and push ups. I'm going to try to make this a weekday ritual because it has such awesome effects on core strength and muscle tone. I've lost as much fat as I can with just aerobic training; it's hammer time.

Tuesday Evening - 1 hour run, 7.23 miles Had an allergy shot go funky earlier today and was on a medication, so that wasn't ideal. Legs were still a little blown from last weekend as well. This was an escalation until failure workout and I hit failure a little earlier than I wanted, but the mileage was awesome. I'll take 7.23 miles in an hour any day. Wednesday Morning - 30 minute bike ride on rollers, 7.62 miles. Was a little sleepy (possibly from yesterday's asthma meds), so I got started a little late on the bike. I didn't even want to get on, but I've learned that just getting on is the only real problem. Do that, and you're set. Started feeling good after a while and finished strong, but still need a little more recovery to get back to peak form. Thursday Morning - 15 minutes with sledgehammer I gotta make sure I keep doing this! My abs are super sore from the past few sledgehammer workouts and so are a lot of my other muscles. I'm trying to make this a habit by creating a ritual around it - Putting on some heavy metal music on the iPod, starting out with some simple curls to get going, and then I'm into it. I also do everything possible on one leg and it makes the core work at least twice as hard. Thursday Morning - Roller ride, 30 minutes, 6 miles. I'm fed up with trying to edit this entry and it not saving, so I'm at the point where I don't even want to describe it anymore.  It was a bike ride.  Yay.  Let's move on dot org. Thursday PM - Sledgehammer, 15 minutes. Not much time for anything else, so did the sledgehammer workout again. It's getting to be a little much, but it's good stuff. Christmas eve morning, 15 minutes hammertime. Tying this into a morning ritual habit. Had the genius idea of ritualizing new ideas to make them a true habit. Listen to music you dig, drink a tea, bust a hammer. Christmas eve noon - 1:30 run, 9.61 miles Nice run around the 'hood and out on a dirt road. Took Roxy with me the first half hour. Running after doing the sledgehammer makes you feel like a badass. Pretty funny. Ate a piece of Ezekiel bread during the run. Nice. Friday PM - 1.5 hours on rollers, 27 miles. Nice bike ride on rollers, just staying in zone 2. Noticed that I burned well over 2000 calories today working out. That's why I put on fat when I don't work out! Christmas morning - Hammertime for 15 minutes. Not much opportunity to workout with all the family here, so did this real quick. Relatives pretty impressed with how much you can do with a simple hammer and standing on one leg. Definitely got some converts today. Christmas Day - 1:15 run, 7.36 miles. Made the excuse that I needed to go run the dog and got the hell out of the house. It was stupid cold and windy, but still got it done. Family is fun, but not everything is great in concentration. Whew! Sunday Morning - 1:15 run, 8.55 miles. Another running escape. I love being a runner and having that excuse to exit the scene. Diet is slowly crumbling away with all this mayhem and needed some time alone to just... be alone! LOL. Another crazy windy/cold day. I'd rather be on the treadmill but I think people are playing Yahtzee on it. TOTALS:  Total hours - 9:55 Duration Running 5:00 hours Cycling 3:15 hours Circuit training 1:10 hours Overal thoughts: I thought I'd be able to do better this week since we're in town, but nope. Failed.  I'm going to have to go into "Monk Mode" next year to eat better and get more done.