Barley more than a month since the last time I went to the gym and I made it back. OK, that’s not really a good track record, but at least I made it back… and increased the weight from last time.
Flat Bench:
20 x 135
10 x 155
5 x 185
Incline Bench:
20 x 95
10 x 135
5 x 155
Incline Fly:
20 x 35
10 x 45
5 x 55
Tri Pull-down:
16 x 90
8 x 110
4 x 130
Cable Cross-over:
16 x 40
8 x 60
4 x 80
It’s been an interesting couple of months. We had been swimming 2 or 3 times a week with the evening masters swim team at American Fork, but all that stopped in December when everyone made their way to town for Christmas. It seemed like we might start swimming again in January, but we only went once or twice before heading off on our big trip to Portugal, Spain, and Morocco.
Now it’s the end of February and it feels like I haven’t been in the water forever.
I did finally get on the trainer with Charmaine again the other day. I think that will become a regular thing again. I really want to ride outside, but it’s still too cold, so the trainer will have to do.
I’ve decided I’m not going to allow myself to walk the run at Spudman this year. Joey Ekstrom has agreed to run with me at lunch. So far we’ve only gone once, and only for about a mile, but it’s a good start.
Today I went to the gym for the first time in years. Joe is trying to rehabilitate his broken leg, so we’re stuck doing upper-body workouts, but it’s great. After a few low-weight, high-rep sets, we walked on the treadmill for a few minutes. I hope that means we didn’t over do it and the trend will continue. Of course, that all depends on how long the company holds together, and that doesn’t look especially promising right now.
Flat Bench:
20 x 115
16 x 135
12 x 155
Military Press:
16 x 115
12 x 135
Lat Pull-down:
20 x 80
16 x 100
12 x 120
Treadmill:
15 minutes @ 4.0 mph
I wanted to give this post the title, “Sundance”. Unfortunately, I broke down mentally, and had us turn around within a few hundred yards of reaching the famous ski resort.
We knew we needed to do a big ride today. Charmaine’s 100 mile ride is only a week away. Her training schedule suggested we do a 60 mile ride today. We were not sure how far we would really get because we were both still a bit sore from the other big rides we did this week, and from the little bit of swimming we did on Thursday. We decided to head towards Provo Canyon again. After riding up to Vivian Park, we were both feeling really good… maybe a little too good… so we decided to head on up the canyon to Sundance.
The ride along the concrete highway was really nice. There was plenty of room to ride between the washboard grading next to the lane marker and the rail at the edge of the highway. And it was so smooth. We averaged almost 20 mph all the way up the canyon from Vivan Park to the turn off for Sundance.
The entrance to the canyon said Sundance was 2 miles. The first few hundred yards were relatively flat and I found myself questioning how it could only be 2 miles to a ski area if the road was so flat. The answer came quickly. We stopped 2 or 3 times in that small section of canyon before finally giving up and turning around. When we got back home and plugged the Garmin into the computer, we saw that we had ridden more than 2 miles up the canyon (the road sign lied), and that we were just a few hundred feet from the entrance to Sundance! I feel bad for making the call to turn around. We’ll get it next time!
We rode back down Provo Canyon and out past the Mt. TImpanogos Temple down to 100 East in American Fork, stopping at a gas station along the way for a drink and some sugar. Then we rode north on 100 East (the Alpine Highway, as it is called) to 104000 North. We then cut through the neighborhood to the secret pond behind Timpanogos High School. We were pretty burned out, but managed to make it home right around the 50 mile mark on the Garmin.
In the end, we rode just over 50 miles, climbed just under 3000 feet, and spent about 4 hours in the saddle. Did I mention it was a beautiful day for a ride? It certainly was.
We finally made it back to swim practice. Well, we made it for part of practice. I just can’t seem to get there by 7:30, and I’m not exactly sad about missing out on the dryland training (although that probably means the dryland training would help me even more than the swimming does, but let’s not get into that).
It was nice to get back in the pool. It was nice to be swimming long course. We did more pulling than we have ever done before, and my shoulders are feeling it. I asked it I can bring my paddles for pulling in the future. Coach Dave said it would be ok. We’ll see if he still agrees after he sees how big they are.
After the pull sets, the guards switched the pool from long course to short course, and we finished up short course. It turned out to be really nice. I was in the most western lane of the team, with several empty lanes to the west of me… which was beautiful to swim next to as the sun went down.
Pull Set (900):
6 x 50 Pulling on 1:15 (2 sprint, 1 easy)
6 x 50 Pulling on 1:10 (2 sprint, 1 easy)
6 x 50 Pulling on 1:10 (2 sprint, 1 easy)
Fly Set (300):
6 x 75 Fly drill on 1:15 with fins (3 right, 3 left, 2 full)
6 x 75 Fly drill on 1:15 with fins (1 right, 1 full, 1 left, 1 full)
Tonight at about 6:00 I asked Charmaine where we would be riding. I also told her it was already 6:00. I don’t know what time we finally left, but I think it was close to 7:00. We didn’t get home until after 9:30, which is well past when the sun went down. In fact, we wound up making some route changes to avoid roads with traffic (since the visibility was down with the sun being gone).
We left our house and cruised down Canyon into Pleasant Grove. We turned and went up some road to avoid riding on State Street. We ended up coming down the 1500 East (PG) / 400 East (Lindon) / 400 West (Orem) hill… yes, that’s just one road with several coordinate-sounding names. Roads change their names and numbers around here, depending on which city you may happen to be crossing. Utah County has the worst system of roads in the nation. We turned and went up 1600 North in Orem, then down 400 East, then up 1200 North, then down 1100 East until we found the mouth of Provo Canyon.
We road up the bike trail to Vivian Park, when we realized it was already 8:00 and the sun would be going down before we made it back home. We booked it down the canyon and across Orem, but by the time we were coming down 1100 North in Pleasant Grove towards Canyon to take us home, it was too dark. We decided to cross right over Canyon and work our way up 600 West, 2600 North, and 900 West until we got back to Cedar Hills and made it home.
All in all, we did about 35 miles, and 1500 feet of total elevation gain. I don’t have excellent record keeping skills, but I think that’s our longest ride yet. I think I could probably do a 50 mile ride, but there’s no way my butt could handle being in the saddle for 100 miles yet. I don’t know how Charmaine is going to do this Little Red Riding Hood gig.
Charmaine’s 100-mile Little Red Riding Hood competition is coming right up. She can’t afford to sit around and not ride. So this morning she convinced me to ride up Suncrest with her, saying we would probably get too tired and have to turn around at some point. For some reason, I agreed. We left straight from our house, rode up into Alpine, across to Highland, and up to Suncrest. It was pretty brutal. I think we got down as slow as 4 mph at some points. I even had to stop a couple times to drink and catch my breath.
But we made it all the way to the top.
It only took a few minutes to go back down, which was so much fun. I set a new personal best for top speed with 52.4 mph. We wound our way back through Highland and Alpine before cutting across the gulley by the Country Club to ride back home.
I think our total ascent was something like 1800 feet, which is pretty good for us. The only problem now is that I don’t have any more excuses.
I got back from vacation to find the bubble had been removed from the pool. That’s great news. I absolutely love swimming outdoors. Unfortunately, it means the new summer schedule is in effect; the pool now closes at 9:00 instead of 10:00. The team has switched their schedule as well. They’re now swimming from 7:30 to 9:00 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. I don’t know what that will mean for me in the long run, but I’m guessing it could mean switching to a new team. I don’t think I can be finished with work early enough to get to practice by 7:30, and there’s no sense paying for time wasted. We’ll see how it turns out.
As for this week, I didn’t know the new schedule was in effect, so I showed up to an empty pool at 8:20. It looked like there may have been an age-group swim meet earlier that day. They were taking down tables and chairs around the pool. I figured practice must have been cancelled because of it, but the pool was wide open so I got in and swam. 15 minutes later, Andrea and Jann showed up and swam a bit with me. We only did about 1500 before the pool closed on us (at 9:00), but it was still fun. Jann is really fast, but I learned that she used to swim Butterfly and sprint freestyle for BYU.
The practice hadn’t actually been cancelled; the team was doing dryland exercises inside. I’m sort of glad I missed that.
Warm-Up (400):
4 x 100 Free easy
Main Set (1000):
1 x 400 Free
1 x 200 IM Drill with fins
1 x 100 Free (25 easy, 25 fast, 25 easy, 25 fast)
1 x 100 Stroke (25 breast, 25 back, 25 breast, 25 back)
1 x 100 Drill (25 breast, 25 fly, 25 back, 25 free)
1 x 100 Free (25 easy, 25 fast, 25 easy, 25 fast)
Warm-Down (100):
2 x 50 Free easy
I wasn’t feeling too well today… a bit dizzy for some reason, but I decided to go swimming anyway, because I usually feel better afterwards. Tonight was no exception. I felt better after swimming, but I certainly didn’t feel great during the workout. It was pretty rough.
Warm-Up (1600):
12 x 100 Free on 1:45 using 6-beat kick
16 x 25 Free on 0:30 using 6-beat kick
Main Set (2300):
5 x 400 Free on 7:00
1 x 200 Backstroke Easy
4 x Power Turns
It’s been raining a lot. It rained so much today that we had to put our boots on and do some digging in our backyard to move a large puddle away from one of our window wells. It was tough, but doesn’t help anyone prepare for a big cycling competition in June… so we put on our biking stuff and took a quick ride around Alpine just before the sun set.
It was an easy ride, for sure. The terrain is mostly flat, and we were doing a lot more exploring than really riding. But there were a few good hills, including one at the end, when we rode up Oak Road West. I was happy to never get off my bike. In fact, for the most part, I stayed on my big front ring. I did shift down a couple times on hills, but that was it.
In the end we went 16 miles, with an average speed of 13 mph and a top speed of 38 mph (I pushed pretty hard on the slight decline between Alpine and the Walmart in Cedar Hills).
First let me say that we rode our trainers Monday for about 45 minutes. Then Charmaine got me to agree to do a short ride Tuesday with a local group that calls themselves the boat-dock bandits.
We started the ride at the furthest north west parking lot at UVU. The ride would take us out along the shores of Utah Lake and up to the American Fork boat dock. The group gets its name from upsetting the old man that works the boat dock entrance gate (and always wants to charge the riders or prevent them from turning around inside the parking area).
The short ride turned out to be 22 miles in some pretty serious wind. At one point we couldn’t see more than about 10 feet in front of us because of the dust storm we were riding through. Luckily, the ride was extremely flat and the wind was at our backs the whole way back (we were going more than 30 mph with the wind’s help).
Unfortunately for us, we got back to the car without enough time to go home and get changed for swimming. We did our best, but still arrived a few minutes late.
As it turned out, that huge wind storm we were riding through was enough to close the pool. It’s technically an outdoor pool, even though it has a bubble over it. In severe wind storms, they close the pool to prevent anyone from drowning in the unlikely event that the wind causes the bubble to collapse. So, instead of swimming, or reviewing our videos from last week, we got to do dryland training! By the end, I had to struggle just to stand up so I could drive home. It was fairly embarrassing.