The Weekend Aches

The weekend started off very promising as I got home from a work job in Erie on time around 4PM. I headed straight over to Blazers (my gym) and started my lifting workout. I really enjoy doing this workout because it makes me feel like I'm really getting a good workout out of it. No messin around in other words. The workout takes about 80 minutes to complete and is turning into one of my favorite workouts of the week. After the gym I got home and Jen and I ate some pasta with my favorite Denunzio's homemade sauce. After dinner I climbed on my bike for what was to be a 90 minute workout with 40 minutes straight in zone 3. After a good 30 minute warm-up, I turned up my motor and set into a comfortable 155ish Heart Rate. I felt good for the first minute or two, but after that my HR started to drop. What was going on here? For some reason I just didn't have it tonight. No matter how much energy I put into each pedal stroke, the harder it got to keep my HR in zone 3. I finally gave up, and realized that tonight’s workout just wasn't to be. I got an hour in, and decided that rest would be a much better solution then spinning aimlessly for another 30 minutes on the trainer.

Saturday morning was a little bit better. After laying around the house all morning, Jen and I decided to get in our long run for the week. Saturday's run was a 75 minute run in zones 1-2. Very easy!!! Very doable. We ran a nice and moderately hilly course (we live in Western PA so every course is hilly) and finished up around 1:30 PM. We opted to reschedule our swim workout for Sunday and took the rest of the day off. My body was telling me, enough is enough therefore my afternoon consisted of laying on the couch practically dead to the world. There were times where I would hop onto the web continuing to work on the Pittsburgh Road Runners new website (www.thegreaterpittsburghroadrunnersclub.com) but besides that I didn't lift a finger. Around 8PM we were both hungry and drove about one mile from our house (I know we should have walked....but it was cold out) to the Mexican restaurant Los Campincino's. It's my favorite!!! After we got home I went straight to bed (around 8:30 PM) watched the Pen's game, and fast asleep for the long bike ride in the morning.

The alarm clock went off way too early today as I could have slept another 2 or 3 hours, but regardless it was time to bike. It was cold all day Saturday and today was no different. When Paul showed up he warned Doug and I that there were patches of slush and ice in spots and we had to be careful. I've never biked outdoors in January or February so this was all new to me. I bundled up and off the three of us went. Not even 10 minutes into the ride I knew it was going to be a hard one. My had a very hard time keeping my HR below zone 3, and on the hills it spiked into zones 4 and even zone 5. It wasn't like we were going 23 mph...we were going 17-18. I'm going to take it for what it was and just say that I need some recovery and I've really pushed myself the last 2 months. So as the morning finished out, we ended the morning with a little over 51 miles. It was a great ride and you sometimes forget how nice riding outside is after being trapped in the basement on the trainer night after night. Here's a link to our ride today!!!
http://www.trainingpeaks.com/tny.aspx?a=sw&key=L7II1B4RKgXtEIxJ9x4UIV%2Bf7ZRm67p7

Jen and I are off to the pool soon to get in our 3500 yrd workout. I think afterwards we're going to go out to dinner with some friends for some sushi!!!! Maybe that with some saki will help these weekend aches go away. :)

posted by Chad Holderbaum @ 1:53 PM Comments: 0