Training, Feb. 21

It has been too long since I trained. It has been a full week. Wednesday and Thursday were busy days with nighttime activities that prevented riding. I began to feel sick on Thursday and I spent all day Friday in bed. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, I had the kids at home, while my wife was out of town. We had full days on Saturday and Sunday. By Monday night, I was exhausted and still recovering from being sick. I needed more sleep.

So, tonight, I finally got back on the trainer. I really do need to get out onto real roads one of these days. I rode for an hour. The goal was to continue building an aerobic base. Once I get to the end of February, I will start increasing the intensity. I will have March, April, and May to build fitness and speed. I can taper for the first two weeks of June before I do BRAG.

Tonight's ride was:
10 minutes warmup (Avg. HR 123)
40 minutes at an aerobic pace (Avg. HR 141). Aerobic pace is 131-146.
then 10 minutes to cool down (Avg. HR 134). For most of the cool down, I stayed in the Aerobic pace, but on the low end of the spectrum. For the last 2 minutes, I fell into the high 120s.

Overall ride: 1hr.
Avg. HR 137.
Max. HR 148.

I began watching the Return of the King. I am trying to finish out the LOTR trilogy. I watched until the Rohirrim departed for Gondor. I will have to pick up the movie the next time I ride.

Speaking of which, this is not a very good week for riding. I will try to ride tomorrow night. Thursday, I am leaving town. If I work at it, I might be able to get in a ride before I leave. On Friday, I will be at a conference. The conference has a long break in the afternoon. I am debating bringing my bike so that I can ride during the break. Saturday, I drive home and have a family birthday party in the evening.

So, I will try to work hard to get in a couple more rides this week.

Tags: training, bicycle, cycling, bike, LOTR, Lord of the Rings, Return of the King,

Training, Feb. 14

I got to train tonight, even though it is Valentine's Day. My wife had things to do on the computer -- so, she sent me out to train for an hour in the garage.

The hour consisted of:
Warm-up 11 minutes, Avg. HR 104
30 minute time trial attempt:
First 10 minutes: Avg. HR 138
Last 20 minuets: Avg. HR 162
Cool Down: 19 minutes, Avg. HR 133
Overall session: 1:00:00, Avg. HR 138, Max. HR 171.

The purpose of the workout was to come up with an initial estimate of my Lactate Threshold HR. According to Friel, the avg. HR over the last 20 minutes of a 30 minute time trial is a close approximation of LTHR. This would put my estimate at 162. But, I don't think I went hard enough for it to work. I think I need to go harder over the first 10 minutes, and then try to maintain and see if my LTHR is closer to 170. According to my HRM, my theoretical HR Max. is 186. 162 is about 87% HR Max.

I was listening to Piper again. This was his second sermon on Rom. 1:19 (?) about God pouring out his wrath on mankind because they have denied the creator. He spent a significant portion talking about the philosophy of natural evolution and the intelligent design debate. This is a sermon that was given in 1998 or 1999, before the current controversy over intelligent design. His point was that evolutionary theory is one way that humankind denies God.

He then stepped back and made the best part of the sermon in 4 steps.
1. Everyone is made by God.
2. Everyone knows of God, even if they deny him.
3. The problems that we see around us--i.e., crime, homelessness, illness, poverty, drug addiction--are the evidence of God's wrath being poured out.
4. If we don't reach out to the people around us, then we are denying God by denying his creation.

I think that I have made his points in the same basic ideas that he made them. He made the sermons much more eloquently.

Tags: training, cycling, bicycle, family, Joe Friel, Cyclist's Training Bible, wife, John Piper, Romans, Christianity, sermon, Bible, sin, valentines day,

(Not) Training, Feb. 10-11

I am a slacker. I just posted goals on Thursday. I now have to admit that on Friday and Saturday, I have not met my goals. I have not ridden yesterday or today. Now it is 1:30 a.m. on Sunday, and I am not riding tonight/this morning.

Need to get back to more serious training next week.

Tags: training, bicycle, cycling, bike, goals, slacker, lazy

Training, Feb. 9

I finally had the chance to ride again last night. I was on the trainer in the garage. I had wanted to ride my bike into my office, where I needed to pick up my car. My wife insisted that I let my mom drive me and then ride after I was back. I guess it was just as well, it was pretty cold last night.

I decided to try to understand what recovery pace should be. I still have done any baseline testing, but I tried to keep my heart rate under 100. That is in the 55-60% of Max HR range. My heart rate did spike up to at least 130, but my average was 98 for the hour of riding. It felt very slow. I did not sweat much, if at all. I guess that to recover, you really need to slow down. As I work my way through the Cyclist's Training Bible, I will have to see if this is actually the right pace. It feels too slow.

I listened to a John Piper sermon on Romans 1:18. The thesis is that God is pouring (active verb) out His wrath. Piper highlighted three ways that Romans talks about the wrath of God: death, futility, and degradation. Death (both natural and spiritual) is the result of sin, particularly original sin. Futility talks about the frustration that we face as things do not go our way. Degradation refers to the fact that God gives people over to their sin when they refuse to do what is right. Romans refers to each of these as a consequence of sin.

The good news is that God speaks with two voices. In Romans 8:20, when Paul discusses futility, he also talks of God subjecting the world "in hope." So in the midst of God pouring out wrath, He also speaks hope and salvation.

Great workout. Great sermon.

Tags: training, cycling, bicycle, goals, family, Friel, Cyclist's Training Bible, wife, John Piper, Romans, Christianity, sermon, Bible, sin

Training Goals: Feb. 5 - 11

Well, it is late in the week. The goals won't be much at this point.

There was no time to ride Sunday - Wednesday.

Thursday: 1 hour, easy spin
Friday: 1 hour, easy spin
Saturday: 30 minutes - 1 hour, spinning

I have a copy of the Cyclist's Training Bible. It was given to me for Christmas. [Thanks Brian!] I am just starting to read it. As I read, it looks like I need to slow down a little and build a better base before I get too into speed work. I am trying to ride mostly recovery pace this week so that I get exercise, but have a chance to read more of the book before I make any major gaffes.

Tags: training, BRAG, cycling, bicycle, goals, family, Friel, Cyclist's Training Bible

Training Recap: Jan. 29 - Feb. 4

I was not able to train over the last couple of days. We had too much going on. The first half of next week will be busy too. I may need to do a light week. It will be good on my legs anyway. After the first dose of strenght training and then a marathon ride on Thursday night, a lighter week will be good for me.

I spent a total of 4 hours and 10 minutes on the trainer last week. I had hoped to hit 4:30 or even 5 hours, but that will have to come later. Sometimes life interferes with my goals, but that is okay. I have higher priorities than riding the bike.

I will post goals for next week in a couple of days. I won't be riding tonight. I need to schedule a time to ride next. Maybe Monday or Tuesday.

Tags: training, BRAG, cycling, bicycle, goals, family

Training Feb 2

Rode tonight. The goal was 1:30 to 2:00.

Total time riden was 2:45. Not all in one block though.

Breakdown:
0:35:00 Had to stop to change the entertainment. The original show I had on was too boring. I put on Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers. It was much better for the remainder of the ride.

1:00:00 Had to stop to refresh my drink, have a snack, and have a short rest. I also put in some laundry. I also set up to burn some sermon CDs for Christ Community Church. I burned the CDs while I rode. I setup the laptop on a table next to the trainer and switched out CDs from the bike.

0:30:00 Time to change the laundry into the dryer. I also printed the labels for the CDs and affixed them.

0:40:00 Time to end, during the midst of the battle for Helms Deep.

I am tired. It is time to shower and go to bed. Once the battle is over.

Tags: training, bicycle, cycling, bike, LOTR, Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, church, Christianity, sermon, Audacity, Christ Community Church

Training Jan. 31

Last night's training:

Cross training - played basketball with the youth team. We didn't scrimmage the whole hour like we have been doing recently. We did some much needed work on fundamentals first. Then scrimmaged at the end, but I got some exercise in.

Cycling - the goal was 45 minutes, working on strength. To work on strength, I increased the resistance on the trainer by one notch, and then did intervals. I warmed up for 15 minutes, then did three five minute intervals that consisted of 1 minute standing at higher resistance, 1 minute sitting at higher resistance, and 3 minutes of recovery. After the last recovery, I did 15 minutes of spinning to finish the 45 minute workout.

I listened to a John Piper sermon on Romans 1:16-17. The sermon dealt with salvation for the believer being in the future and as a result of being justified by faith. It also dealt with the phrase "from faith to faith." According to Piper, the phrase means that we are saved by faith at the beginning, but also by persevering in our faith. That initial faith then increases our faith. By living in faith every day, we receive more faith to continue.

This morning I finally dropped below 200 lbs. for the first time in a couple of months. The holiday feasts were not kind to my waistline. I need to lose more weight to get into shape for BRAG.

Tags: training, bicycle, cycling, bike, John Piper, sermon, Christianity, faith, Romans