Riding Along a Breadcrumb Trail

Always riding the same route with the bike can get pretty boring... So every now and then, I will venture out.

My partner in crime for a new route adventure was Stacy (tri buddy). The route was picked out on bikely.com and I typed out a cue sheet. But then I remembered the "course" function for the Garmin Forerunner 305.

It took me about an hour to figure out how to get the route off bikely (that was the easy part) and then into a format that the Garmin can understand. I will write a quick "how to" so that you guys don't have to go through this yourself. With the route in the Garmin, we were ready to roll this morning at 7.30am.

The route was listed at 50 miles, but we ended up having to do a little detour due to road construction.... It was about half an hour drive for me to get to the meet up point, but having "only" 1,700 feet of climbing over this distance, really sounded like taking a nice break from the foothills around here.

Oh and can we just say what a sweet relief a high in the 80s is, especially since we haven't seen temps like this since.... ummmm... April. For a split second, I actually thought I should have packed some arm warmers, but really, that would have been complete overkill.

Once on the road, I picked out the course and clicked "do course" and thought I would be done then. Well, since I didn't read the manual, I kind of was in state of trial and error for the first two miles until I finally ended up with this screen.

Or something resembling this screen. As you, see the display is a far cry from a car GPS and there is definitely no voice telling you to "turn left" etc. It's more like following a breadcrumb trail and I was really glad that I had a paper cue sheet with me... just to be safe. Because it was my first time trying the course function, I referred to the cue sheet  fairly often, but really that wasn't necessary. Even with the detour due to the road construction, we would have been able to find back on the route just with the Garmin. I am a fan.... I don't think I will ever attempt a new route without this function, if I can help it.

Oh and we ended up with around 55 miles in 3.5 hours and certainly didn't kill ourselves out there. I am surprised that I was able to keep up at a 50 miler with only very little biking in August. My quads were screaming at me the last five miles or so, but other than that... Not a problem.

So long! ;-)

Unthinkable

Earlier this week, I finished up "UnThinkable" The Scott Rigsby Story on audio book. The book tells the story of the first double amputee on prosthesis to finish an Ironman. Not any Ironman, but the World Championship in Kona.

This is a story about faith and willpower and will leave you inspired. You don't have to be a triathlete or even an athlete to be uplifted and encouraged by this.

Two thumbs up!!!





Scott Rigsby has founded the Scott Rigsby Foundation with the objection to inform and enable physically challenged people to lead and active lifestyle.

If you don't feel inspired now to set out and do something you never thought you could... Well, I don't know.

So long! ;-)

My Theory About Scales

Last Friday, I noticed a scale in the Women's locker room at the Caine Halter YMCA. The scale is set up right in front of the mirrors with the hair dryers where everyone lines up to get ready.

I have seen scales in the weight/ cardio rooms before, but not in a locker room and especially not such a huge electronic one. To be honest, I am not happy about this. I think scales are helpful to keep track of your weight or your weight loss, but I don't like to be surrounded by them.

Coming from the background of having lost a lot of weight myself fairly recently (in 2008), I am throwing out my observations (this is not a study and I don't have any proof for that):

1. you are overweight and deny it, you don't even own a scale
2. you are overweight and know it, you might own a scale, but don't step on it (what's the point right?)
3. you are currently trying to loose weight, you own a scale and use it
4. you are at a healthy weight and never had any issues with your weight, you most likely don't own a scale
5. you are at a healthy weight or underweight, you own a scale and use it

People in the category 1/2/4 are not going to use the scale in the locker room.

People in the category 3/5 are already concerned/ obsessed with their weight and with the scale in the locker room, you give them just another opportunity to step on a scale and fret about their weight. Truth is, a person's weight varies throughout the day and can vary several pounds throughout the same day. It doesn't make sense to torture yourself.

I know what I am talking about! I used to be one of those people that stepped on a scale several times a day. I was never underweight and not overweight since I crossed the line between normal and overweight on the BMI sometime in 2008. Still, I tortured myself with every fluctuation in weight since then.

Don't get me wrong. I believe that weighing yourself is a necessary tool to keep the weight off and a lot of studies do support this statement. But we are talking about weighing once every couple of days or once a week. So there is a place for a scale in your home or even in your gym, especially, when you are trying to loose weight and to keep the weight off that you already lost, BUT you have to make sure that it doesn't become an obsession.

I thought about this a lot since I saw that scale in the locker room. I believe that scales are more "dangerous" for people that have a tendency of being unhealthy by being too skinny and not by being too big... that's why I left this note this morning, before I headed out for my run:

No picture of the scale, because cameras are not allowed in the locker room!

So long!

Old Favorites

Sunday and Monday I revisited two old training "favorites" of mine.

Sunday: 10-miler

I haven't done a 10-miler in several months and I always feel like I accomplished something when my mileage goes double digits.

It was supposed to be an easy run and I was supposed to be on my feet for two hours. Check and check.

You read it all over Runner's World that a lot of runners go too hard on easy days and I was certainly one of them before I started following directions on heart rate zone training. For the life of me, I wanted to avoid doing a run over a 10 minute mile average with the result that no matter which distance I ran, I always ran around a 10 minute mile average. Not much faster and not much slower.

Right now, I try to follow the instructions on each of my runs to the "T". If it says easy than I run/jog easy even if that means that I end up with a 12 minute mile for my run. If it says tempo, then I do tempo. Intervals are intervals etc.

Sure, sometimes I feel like I lost the little speed that I gained earlier this year, but then I have to remind myself to have trust in the plan.... and that everything is going to fall into place eventually... especially if the temps finally decide to take it easier on us! ;-)

Monday: Up and Over Paris Mountain

Yesterday, Terry and I set out to climb up the steep side of Paris Mtn on Altamont Road a.k.a. "Back Of Paris" (if that doesn't give me some hits from Google, then I don't know what will! ;-) on our bikes.

It's a two mile ride to the bottom and then a little over two mile climb up and then rolling down to the other side. Then a lot of rolling hills and some real sucky hills through the neighborhood back to the house. The whole trip isn't even 14 miles and it's over 2,000 feet of climbing. The route is rough on the bikes for sure, but it also is great hill climbing training and a practice in descending, a skill that needs a lot of improvement for me. If I really go through with it and sign up for Assault on Marion/Mtn Mitchell in 2011, then this is going to be my training route... and around and around and around.

What we rode yesterday, was also a major chunk of the Paris Mountain Road Race 20K that the Greenville Track Club puts on every year in December... And right then and there, I decided that I won't ever try running that race. It's rough enough on the bike, but running it? Seriously?
So long!

Healthy Living Blogs

This is directly from the page "Healthy Living Blogs - About".

"Healthy Living Blogs was designed to enhance the already tight-knit, supportive community of the healthy living blog world. An amazingly strong connection is formed when like-minded individuals come together to encourage one another, and that’s exactly what HLB is here to accomplish. Find new blogs that blow you away. Find new inspiration. Find people in your geographic area to meet and encourage and support you in real life.
I’ve frequently been asked, “What kind of blogs can be part of HLB?” The answer is simple; any blog which focuses on health. This includes a wide variety of “types” of blogs. While bloggers who post multiple times a day, sharing everything they eat and do are more than welcome, so is everyone else. You can blog three tims a week or three times a day, you can blog only fitness tips, only healthy recipes, or everything about your quest to lose weight. You can reach beyond nutrition and fitness to explore other areas of health. You can have five readers or 500,000 readers. HLB is open for everyone, bloggers and readers alike, who care about health.
HLB was the brain-child of Lindsey who writes about her personal healthy living journey back to school to become an R.D. over at Sound Eats."

This is a great resource. I especially like, that you can look for blogs by area!!

To be included in the blog listings, simply send an email with the following information to healthylivingblogs@gmail.com:

• Email subject line: MEMBERS
• Your name (please let me know if you prefer to go by first name, first and last, or however you prefer to be known on the Internet)
• Your blog name and URL
• Your twitter username, if you have it
• Your location (if you prefer not to disclose this information for privacy’s sake, that is completely understandable. We’ll simply include your blog listing in the a-z listing, not by location, too)
• Any specific labels (i.e. vegan, gluten-free, weight loss, running, etc.)

Happy Sunday everyone!

Another Picture Filler Post

I found some pictures online from last weekend's sprint tri in Laurens.

Enjoy, while I digest my lunch to a point that I can head out for my planned two hour run. That's what I get for being lazy this morning and not getting my butt in gear.

setting up transition

top middle, I think I just got the swim course explained

listening to the race director

testing the water, after the first wave was off

hanging out in the water - chit-chatting

about to come in T2

I guess, I am getting my breath

No pics running or from the finish line... Oh well.

1-Year Bloggerversary

Today is my one year bloggerversary.

When I started out last year, I wasn't even sure if I am going to be able and willing to keep this up. And even though I don't think that blogging is a life changing experience for me, it certainly is an outlet that I enjoy having and I am willing to spend some my free time on.

Thanks for reading along and commenting. On to another year!

******************

Last night, I met a couple of friends to run the Paris Mountain trails. Last year, this was a weekly get-together and right now, we trying to find back into a groove doing this on a more regular basis again.

We did a modification of the Paris Mtn 11K trail race course bringing the distance to pretty much exactly six miles.

It was Terry, Alex (relay team member) and Stacy (tri training buddy) as well as two dogs. The boys took off at the front with the doggies and Stacy and I chatted the whole time. We haven't seen each other in a couple of weeks and had to catch up. It was her first trail run ever and it was a lot of fun to show her the trails. After the run, she said that she really enjoyed herself and the change of pace and scenery that trail running brings. Since it started thundering, when we were at the top parking lot, we decided to run back on the road vs the trail. It's pretty much the same distance down, but you are faster on the road and the weather looked like it's going to go crazy any second now. So we actually, "just" did 4 miles on trails and the rest on the road, but we certainly did the most difficult portion of the course on trails.

The weather behaved until we were back at the cars. Perfect timing!

Oh and when I got back, my car looked like this.

Fortunately, the guy that did that left a note with his phone number.

Have a great weekend!