In NYC

Last night I went to a "Bikram Yoga" class on 27th street. It is 90 minutes long and a very difficult workout. It is not the relaxation get in touch with your inner self type of yoga. It is kind of militant in that you are told what to do and you are to do it immediately for the length of time you are told. There were alot of people in the class who had to stop or take breaks because they were dizzy with the heat. I noticed that the routine was the exact same as the class I went to in San Fransisco. I walked about 35 minutes each way to get to the class so I felt I got a fair amount of exercise yesterday. Today, I ran for about 50 minutes in Central Park. There are thousands of people running in the park; there are running clubs everywhere and people are just flying. I felt pretty slow and was getting fed up getting passed all the time so I speeded up a bit as I went.
I am a little concerned with my body issues relating to my right side body weaknesses that I have been working on all winter by going to yoga. I am still having pain in my knee (which could be arthritis) some pain in my right foot (which had gone away once I started doing yoga and strength exercises) but has just come back. I thought the balancing work in yoga had fixed my foot problem. Anyway, we will see how it goes. It may just be an ongoing thing that I have to deal with.

I walked around midtown today and did some shopping. Tonight, I am going out with a friend in Chelsea for drinks and dinner. Planning on going running again tomorrow if it is nice.

Off to New York

I have had a busy week at work and good week of training. I am pleased to say I have been biking 3 times in March! Since my last post I biked about 40 k last Thursday with Greg and Corena in Stratford/Pownal. On the weekend on Saturday Greg, Corena and Ellen and I biked about 45-50 k out around Brackley. It was great. I am feeling a little stronger this year starting out on the bike. I have done more spinning classes over the winter than last year and have also gone a bit harder in spinning. On Friday past I swam about 2400 metres at lunch time. I did a spin class on Saturday morning and then some weights and stretching. Sunday, I ran 17 k at a moderate pace and felt ok. Monday, this week, I did hot yoga. Tuesday, I did a fairly easy spin class. Today (Wednesday) I swam about 2000 m and did a hot yoga class. My weight this week is around 152 pounds which is light for me.

Tomorrow, i am off to New York for a fun weekend. I plan to do two longish runs and a couple of yoga classes if possible.

Not much for early mornings these days

I find that I go in cycles with respect to getting up early. I can make it a part of my routine and it becomes almost normal. Other times, I find it wears me down. By early mornings, i mean getting up before 6 am. For the past several years I have been swimming about 3 mornings per week. It was been great and has resulted (ironically) in me getting to work earlier than if I did not swim. When I don't swim, I take my time getting up and getting to work and don't roll into work until about 9 am. when I swim, I am done swimming at 8 am and get to work before 8:30am.

But for the last couple of weeks, I have felt tired and have only gotten up early a couple of times to swim. I have swam at lunch time a few times to make it up. (now that i think of it, i did get up early twice this week- today and monday) Today, I swam about 2500 metres which is a bit longer than I have been swimming. My left shoulder gets a bit sore which means I am doing something wrong or have a weakness causing overuse of that shoulder. (or it could be old age) Yesterday, I did nothing. I was going to go to a yoga class but opted to skip it and get home early. Tuesday, I ran about 8 k and felt sluggish. Monday I swam. Today, if the weather holds out, I am thinking of going for a 40 k bike ride (bike ride number 2 of the season)

Cycling on March 13th

Yesterday I went for my first bike ride of the season. It was great. Tyler Read and I went for an easy 40 k ride. The weather has been fantastic and bodes well for lots of early spring riding. Otherwise, I also did a spin class yesterday and went for a couple of short fast runs with my friend, Rob, last wednesday and friday. I did hot yoga on wednesday and friday as well. I swam on thursday and did a spin class on thursday evening.

Today, (Sunday) I ran about 13 k and felt a bit tired. That is not surprising as I did about 3 hours of exercise yesterday.

I can still run

Since last week, I did hot yoga on Friday; taught spin on Saturday morning followed by 90 minutes of hot yoga; Sunday I ran a fairly hard 17 k followed by ssome weights and core exercises; Monday I swam 2000m and did hot yoga and today I swam again 2000 m and am teaching a spin class.

On the run on Sunday, I went with a friend who has been running alot so I felt like I needed to step up the pace a bit. I felt surprisingly good; I was able to maintain a steady fast pace the whole way. I know my friend was feeling it. I have been running a bit less this winter and because of the time doing yoga but maybe that is not a bad thing. I am itching to get outside biking and the first nice day where I have time, I am going to head out.

Jet Lagged

I have tried to get up early this week to work out or swim and haven't been able to. I had some very early mornings coming back from San Fransisco combined with late nights watching the Olympics. I also didn't realize the pool was going to be closed all weekend. so far this week, I have done hot yoga twice and swam once. I teach spin class tonight. I am thinking of going to UPEI tomorrow at lunch and running on the track indoors for a change. I am also thinking of finally getting on my bike trainor this weekend for a couple of hours.

The hardest thing for me is to slack off a bit. I think that is common with triathletes. It goes with the personality type. Even though everything you read says you should periodically give your body a rest, it is hard to do in practice. My new thing of doing hot yoga is probably allowed my body more of a break than its had in several years in addition to improving my flexibility. I really enjoy the fact that I can squat lower than I could before; I can bend my back further; I can stretch out my quads further etc.... I still have a ways to go and am not super flexible but it is helping a lot. I have been doing 3 hot yoga classes a week; 3 spin classes and about 3 swims plus running when i can.

Back from vacation

I arrived back from San Fransisco yesterday (Sunday, Feb 28th) I was away for about a week and got some exercise while away; I ran a couple of times for about an hour each time around San Fransisco including a couple of long, steep hills. I did three 90 minute hot yoga classes throughout the week where it felt like I sweated out about 5 pounds of fluid each time. Otherwise, I ran 8 k yesterday and did some weights. I was going to swim this am but opted for sleeping in.
If I was following it, this would be week three of my half-ironman training program. I will have a look at it this week and at least try to do some of the runs and swims.