Another Slushy Run
Man I hope this slush melts soon… running on this is pretty tough. The streets are mostly clear now, maybe I’ll do a ride around the lake tomorrow… But I’m a little nervous that there will be sections with ice and/or snow and slush still on the roads. The trail is still about 90% covered with 2 inches of slush.
Workout:
- Type: Run
- Date: 12/26/2008
- Time: 21:27:13
- Total Time: 1:02:53.00
- Average Heart rate: 139
- Max Heart rate: 152
- Calories: 738
- Distance: 6.25 miles
- Average Pace: 10:04.03/mile
Filed under: Run
|
Digg! this story.
|
Leave a Comment
Slush Run? 250% faster than Slush Ride!
Well, Christmas morning has passed, and so next up in our traditional holiday is friends and family arriving at our house for a big feast cooked be ME! I love to cook, and I love to cook for people. I love to make special meals with a full pallet of natural flavors and ingredients. I love making Christmas dinner.
But this morning I got some sad news. My sister and her man-friend (can you really call him a boy?) couldn’t make it down because of the weather. So sad… because I love hanging out with my sister, and her guy. I love that he likes good food and in particular enjoys fresh Oysters… like me… and so I have someone else that appreciates them as opposed to the reaction I get from everyone else (yuk! you want to eat that?!). So, I am bummed.
What better way to cheer up then to go do some exercise? At least for me… exercise is a perfect way to lift my spirits… even when the exercise is far from optimal… and that brings us to this workout…. THE SLUSH RUN!
So, yesterday, I went for a ride on my bike in the slush… it was incredibly difficult. I made it 2 miles in just over an hour. Today, I decided to run… I figured that would be easier. And, I was right, it was easier. That’s not to say it was easy… in fact, it was a very hard run… it was slippery, the slush was heavy on my shoes, and I sunk into this gooey sluggy mess on every step.
There were a couple other runners out on the trail. The first one I saw was running in the street… that was only about a 1/10th of a mile into my run… eventually I realized why she was running in the street. The next guy I saw looked like he was running at a pretty good pace coming the other way, so I figured, hey it can’t be too bad at here. Then I got to my mile marker and saw I was running about 11min/mile… which is a bit slower than I’d prefer to run, but easily 250% faster than my bike ride yesterday.
Around a mile and half I caught up to this guy, he was out cruising along… not a care in the world. Eventually I was passed by another runner. I was amazed by how fast she was running on the slush, as I tried to keep her pace I just slipped and slid around… I figured a bruised ego (anyone who’s ridden with me knows I have a soft spot for chasing rabbits!) is better than a bruised back side. 
But it was great to get out… and get my heart rate up. Now I feel ready to take on the rest of the holiday!
Actually, I should say, now I’m in a good mood, and I will really enjoy preparing our Christmas feast!
Merry Christmas everyone!
Workout:
- Type: Run
- Date: 12/25/2008
- Time: 13:42:09
- Total Time: 00:55:00.00
- Average Heart rate: 137
- Max Heart rate: 154
- Calories: 645
- Distance: 5 miles
- Average Pace: 11:00.55/mile
Filed under: Run
|
Digg! this story.
|
Leave a Comment
Slush Ride - Wow, that was tough!
The snow’s been melting, so I figured if I wanted to get another snow ride in this year, I’d need to jump on it. Plus, I was feeling a little off yesterday, and I’m sure it’s because I haven’t gotten much exercise the last week or so… so I headed out for a snow ride. What I got instead, was a slush ride.
So here’s the thing… it turns out, it’s a lot easier to ride on ice and hard packed snow than it is to ride on slush. Sure, ice is slippery, snow on top of ice can be even more slippery, but slush… that’s not really something you ride on, as much as ride in.
What we have out on the trails/roads right now in Seattle is about 3 inches of slush. On the trail, where there’s little or no traffic, it looks like snow… it looks a lot like what I rode in a couple days ago. But it’s not… it’s all melting and waiting to trap you. Imagine super slippery sand…. yep, even sand has more traction than this stuff.
By about .3 miles into the ride, I know I knew I was in for a serious workout.
My ride went something like this… pedal about 10 feet, spin out, fall off… get up… try to get started… spin out for about 30 seconds… try slow, try fast, try hard, try easy…. get going again… 10 more feet…. spin out.
I had a couple stretchers where I was able to get about 100 yards or so… But those were rare. I was really working it. I felt like I was doing squats or lunges with about 70% max single rep weight. I was having to balance as my bike skidded through the slush… this was a full body workout.
About 28 minutes in, I was just barely at the mile mark… I figured I’d stop there, take a photo and turn around… But as I got to the mile marker I was on one of my rare 100 yard plus stretches without stopping… so I kept going for another 10 seconds or so until I hit another skidding spot…
The thing that surprised me was that it was actually easier to ride in the deep snow, then it was on the slush. Maybe that’s because the deep snow was on the ground, and so I got better traction from the grass/gravel, but the slush was on the paved trail, and so there was no traction, just slush on asphalt.
There were several people walking along the trail, and aside from getting their boots wet, they had an effortless time. They walked by me as I spun out, and precariously balanced on my bike, or fell off in front of them (only once)… just shaking their heads… WHAT IS THIS IDIOT DOING!?!
One lady actually asked me “You did this on purpose right?” Yep… I could have walk home a lot faster… but that wasn’t the point! Was it!
Workout:
- Type: Cycle
- Date: 12/24/2008
- Time: 15:15:01
- Total Time: 1:08:26.00
- Average Heart rate: 135
- Max Heart rate: 167
- Calories: 758
- Distance: 2.1 miles
- Average Speed: 1.84 mph
Filed under: Cycle
|
Digg! this story.
|
Leave a Comment
Sore after my Snow Ride
I am surprisingly sore after my snow ride yesterday. I didn’t think it would be much of a workout, but apparently it was a full body & core workout, as all over my body there are little stabilizer muscles that are sore.
I got a tweet from someone on twitter pointing me to this crazy product…
Not sure that it would make sense to own this in Seattle, since we rarely get this much snow… in fact, we usually only get a light dusting of snow that lasts half a day each year. The fact that this snow will be around for another week is unheard of!
But if you live in a more traditional snowy climate, this might be a perfect product to own.
Health:
- Date: 12/23/2008
- Weight: 145
- Mood: Normal
- Sleep Hours: 7.5
- Sleep Pattern: Normal
Filed under: Fitness
|
Digg! this story.
|
Leave a Comment
Snow Ride!
We’ve had so much snow in Seattle, it’s blowing my mind… I had to get out on a snow ride. I was pretty certain the Burke Gilman Trail would be hard packed snow, perfect for riding my hybrid… I was right!
Oh yeah, that’s a coffee cup! You betcha!
Yep, that’s me being all “artsy”… the shadow photo!
This is along the Burke Gilman Trail on the UW campus. I saw several people out for walks in the snow, a couple people out running, a couple other people like me on bikes… but the thing I didn’t expect to see…
…was cross country skiiers… But actually, I saw about a dozen people out doing this… easily 5x more than cyclists!
Here are a couple other shots I took along the way… the quality isn’t the best, but they capture the peacefulness of the experience pretty well.
Workout:
- Type: Cycle
- Date: 12/22/2008
- Time: 21:26:54
- Total Time: 1:00:00.00
- Calories: 313
- Distance: 10 miles
- Average Speed: 10 mph
Filed under: Cycle
|
Digg! this story.
|
Leave a Comment
More Snow and a Strained Hip Flexor
Over Saturday night in Seattle, we got a ton more snow, and so when we all woke up Sunday morning, the light layer of snow had been covered by about 4 more inches of snow, which had then been covered by about 1 inch of frozen snow.
The kids wanted to make Snow Angels but that wasn’t gonna work out. But we did get some more sledding in. Now to be clear, we don’t have a great sledding location. We’re at the top of a hill, but it’s more of a long sloping hill, and so it’s not really steep enough to get going on a sled without some initial power being added… So I was out there pushing my kids down the hill on their sleds.
Imagine the scene: me running at full speed down a hill, in the snow, in giant snow boots. Once they got going, of course, I didn’t need to push, but by this point, I was running down the hill at full speed with very little traction. A couple times I found it was easier to just bail out and through myself down onto the hard packed snow… A couple times I tried to slow myself to a stop… one of those time I tweaked my hip flexor.
I know this pain, I’ve had it before when I strained my hip flexor after taking a spill on my bike. I also know that I used to do a much better job of stretching my hip flexors… but in the last year or so, I’ve been very bad about stretching, and I’m sure that contributed.
So, tonight it was ice and Ibuprofen, and stretching… and I will start a habit of stretching my hip flexors as I walk around… all the time… until I regain my full strength. I guess it’s good this happened now, in the “off season”.
Workout:
- Type: Other
- Date: 12/21/2008
- Total Time: 00:30:00.00
- Calories: 156
Filed under: Other
|
Digg! this story.
|
Leave a Comment
Snow Run on my Screw Shoes
It’s really snowy and icy out there… for Seattle. And as I mentioned in my last post, Seattle isn’t well prepared for snow, so when we get it, it usually means very icy roads and sidewalks. As my sister said, no one here owns snow shovels. (We don’t!) This means that now one shovels the sidewalk in front of their house (how could they) and that just means more ice.
Anyway, I really wanted to get a run in, so I made some screw shoes. What are screw shoes? Well, they’re running shoes with extra traction… extra traction from screws!
My screw shoes are not the best… I didn’t have the perfect screws. But they worked ok. Here’s some before and after shots of my screw shoes.
Workout:
- Type: Run
- Date: 12/19/2008
- Time: 16:30:00
- Total Time: 00:55:56.00
- Average Heart rate: 140
- Max Heart rate: 156
- Calories: 729
- Distance: 6.23 miles
- Average Pace: 8:58.92/mile
- Max Pace: 8:44.78/mile
Filed under: Run
|
Digg! this story.
|
Leave a Comment
Sledding!!!
Seattle has been hit by the great blizzard of 2008. Mind you, we don’t get very much snow here (anyone who lives somewhere where it really snows will note that you can clearly see grass in these photos, so it ain’t that much snow). But we have two major problems. First, no one here knows how to drive in the snow. And second, probably worse, we don’t have enough snow plows (maybe 2 in the whole city)… and so the roads turn to ice quickly. So, the city has shut down… and we took the opportunity to play in the snow.
Let’s call it “walk/run - playing with children - moderate”.
Workout:
- Type: Other
- Date: 12/18/2008
- Total Time: 00:45:00.00
- Calories: 235
Filed under: Other
|
Digg! this story.
|
Leave a Comment
The One Mile Solution
I just voted for a new “Change Idea” on Change.org… The One Mile Solution
28% of all trips in the USA are within 1 mile of home. The vast majority of these trips are made by car. We should encourage people (who are able) to replace one car trip per week within a mile from home with walking or cycling. One trip becomes two, then three, then more. The benefits for the environment, the pocketbook, and our personal and community well being would be huge.
Of course, I totally agree with this idea… I’ve pretty much abandoned using my car for any travel unless I have to take passengers or I’m traveling more than 30 miles. As I said on change.org…
Great idea… so much work to be done in this area, but what a huge difference it would make. To health! To the Environment! To our dependence on foriegn oil (and the national security implications!)
I really do believe this is the kind of change that anyone can make, and if we all made this small change, we could make a huge dent in the biggest issues that are affecting us as a country (and a world).
So today, a normal day to me… I had some errands to run in the middle of the day. So I hopped on my bike. Despite the 29F temperature and threatening blizzard, ice on the road, etc. Look… really, I only had a couple miles to go… and I could choose to ride on a trail (off the road, away from cars) so, I don’t really need to worry about the ice or snow… right? Right!
I’ll log this as a workout, but really it wasn’t much… I probably didn’t even break a sweat… just like it should be for commuting right?
So, do your part, don’t drive those one mile trips… get a run/ride in… and please go vote for change at change.org!
Workout:
- Type: Cycle
- Date: 12/17/2008
- Time: 13:00:00
- Total Time: 00:30:00.00
- Calories: 313
- Distance: 6 miles
- Average Speed: 12 mph
Filed under: Cycle
|
Digg! this story.
|
Leave a Comment
Cccccccooooold Run
Went for a run this afternoon before the “big blizzard of 2008″ hits. (Weather forecast is for snow flurries starting just in time for the morning commute tomorrow.) Any snow on the ground is a disaster for Seattle. We’re such weather idiots around here. We don’t even know how to drive in the RAIN… yep! Isn’t that crazy?!
It was pretty cold out there (for us)… at about 29F. Yeah, yeah, I know, there are people out running in -29F… but still, didn’t I mention we’re wimps in Seattle?
My run was pretty haggard… not sure if it was the cold, or lack of sleep, or still just feeling a bit frumpy, but I put 10 in, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Splits:
- 8:21 - 135
- 8:52 - 147
- 7:53 - 150
- 8:49 - 150
- 8:59 - 144
- 9:04 - 144
- 9:16 - 139
- 8:11 - 140
- 7:45 - 155
- 9:26 - 144
Workout:
- Type: Run
- Date: 12/16/2008
- Time: 15:58:00
- Total Time: 1:25:39.00
- Average Heart rate: 145
- Max Heart rate: 160
- Calories: 1283
- Distance: 10 miles
- Average Pace: 8:33.55/mile
- Max Pace: 7:45.12/mile
Filed under: Run
|
Digg! this story.
|
Leave a Comment
