Four quick things about my new spin obsession

Today's workout was some spin, baby.  Specifically, it was Cathe's Cycle Sweat.

Spin (or indoor cycling....toeMAYto, toeMAHto) is quickly becoming my new obsession, especially since it's low impact but super duper cardio-intensive.  I am currently rotating between Cycle Sweat and three other Cathe spin DVDs: Pedal Power, Ride, and CycleMax.  Here's four quick things about spin that I have discovered in the past few weeks:

Thing #1: This is WAY better than just getting on the bike and pedaling in front of the depressing news we have these days.

I used to pull the bike in front of the TV and just pedal for however many minutes I had decided to pedal that day, grinding through the workout and the news.  No wonder I wasn't ever super excited about getting on the bike.  With these workouts, I have some sort of challenge to look forward to every time I pop in one of these workouts.


Thing #2: Speaking of challenge, holy dripping buckets of sweat, batman.

If you're using the proper resistance and not taking it easy sitting down when they're standing up, then you're going open up the sweat floodgates during these workouts.  I was completely taken by surprise at how many calories my watch said I burned when I did Cycle Sweat for the first time (400+).  I was also taken by surprise by how challenging the workout was, especially since I hadn't ever really ridden on a bike out of the saddle that much.


Thing #3: I'm pretty sure these workouts are going to keep me in riding shape for when the weather allows me to bust out the tri bike this spring.

The one thing I hate in the spring when I start dusting off the tri bike is that feeling like I'm starting over with my bike training.  I'm pretty sure with these workouts I will keep some of my riding legs over the winter so I can dominate my first duathlon in June.


Thing #4: Tiny dog is currently unimpressed by my spin workouts.

Seriously.  She just sleeps through them, mocking me with her slumber.

You can't please everyone, I guess.  But I'm pleased to present the learnings below:

• When the going gets tough during one of these workouts, I just think of how I will dominate my first duathlon because of it.  
• In other words, I lie to myself to push through.
• Tiny dog is new to the house, so she doesn't quite understand my workout obsessions yet.
• Tiny dog doesn't know what she's gotten herself into.
• And sometimes with my races, neither do I.

Upcoming workouts: 5 miler tomorrow with a "rest" day following....and by "rest" I mean "anything but running"

Just some indoor cycling this morning that I didn't want to do.

This morning was Cathe's Pedal Power workout.   My face in the picture below shows exactly how much I wanted to get up and sweat in a little room in my basement all by myself on my indoor bike.

Here's what I wanted to do instead:

Rubbing it in.  The jerk.

But apparently I love pain because I shambled out of bed and made my way downstairs.  As I shambled, I realized my abs and lats were still sobbing quietly in the background from yesterday's workout, making specific things very hard to do such as "sitting up" and "lifting my arms" and "existing."  But I sucked it up, buttercup, and hopped into the saddle.  I programmed a 35 minute time-saver premix and felt like this afterwards:

That's not joy.  Or happiness.  or any happy emotion.  That's my surprise at finding out exactly how hard it is to cycle indoors with sore abs and lats. 

But it's no surprise that bite-size dog couldn't give one crap about my pain and suffering.

She's trained well at not caring.

What else isn't a surprise is these learnings rightcheer:

• This indoor cycling thing...I'm wondering at how much it's going to pay off when I actually get to ride a real bike again in the spring.  Guess we'll find out.
• All my dogs are well-trained at not caring.  It's a gift.
• The cats are even better trained at not caring because they're trained by Mother Nature.
• Joke's on the dogs and cats--currently they can't infest my workout area like they used to at our old house.  But I know they're trying to find a way...

Tomorrow's workout: Some other blast from the past DVD workout that will make other body parts of mine weep and sob.

Getting back in the blogging saddle: BMW Dallas Marathon and other stuff

I last blogged in September.  Buh.  It's been busy and stressful since that time, with work craziness increasing exponentially and with my recent move to a much larger house and all.  So of course to relieve all that stress I decided to give myself another job: writing blathering facetious nonsense about my workouts and races again.  I want to get back in the blogging saddle so I can have something to look forward to doing that's not work-related...and where I can have fun with words instead of writing words dressed up in administrator-ese all the time.

Anyway, let's get started with the facetious nonsense of my most recent marathon: the BMW Dallas Marathon that I ran last weekend.

I tried to race this hilly little race last year, if you recall, and crashed and burned by mile 15.  This year I had no aspirations of racing it, as my training hadn't been all that consistent.  I barely did any 20 milers due to my left butt injury rearing (pun intended) its ugly head again, so I went into the race just aiming to finish and have a good time.

Only one of those goals was accomplished, however--my legs were dead from the start of the race, so there was very little enjoyment. (Unless you count the time one cheer station had donuts and I gladly downed one like it was the last food I would ever get on this earth.)  It was around mile 6 of this race that I realized I needed to take a break from all the high-volume running, backing off from so much running until training would begin for Glass City in late January.  Any full marathon I had scheduled between now and late April was downgraded to a half marathon to give my legs a break. After Dallas, that was the one lesson I learned--it's time to back off a little.

But that doesn't mean I haven't been working out--far from it.  I'm still using the My Run Plan app, and it seems to have the recovery plan I need right now.  Last week it scheduled me for nothing but cross-training, which allowed me to re-discover some old workouts:

Cathe's HiiT Circuit: Upper Body is a nice little workout, with some light weight work sandwiched in-between some high-impact HiiT intervals.  I haven't done Cathe's Supercuts in a few years, so I had honestly forgotten what it was all about.  Here's what I was thinking during the workout: "Meh.  Too easy."  Here's what my back and lats were saying the next day: "MY GAWD WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO US"

Seriously.  That workout is light on weight poundage but heavy on DOMS.  Go into this workout with open eyes and thoroughly warmed-up quads.

I also got to hop on the indoor cycle a few times, doing my now-old-fave Cycle Sweat workout and trying a new-to-me-but-I've-had-this-DVD-for-years-and-never-done-it Cathe cycle workout CycleMax.  It's a pretty solid workout, but I was left wondering why we even needed a seat after spending so much time during the workout out of the saddle.

Even though I've been working out, my legs feel a ton better from the break from running.  The app has me running a whopping one mile today, so I'm going to try to fit that mega-run in some time after I finish cleaning my new house and frantically working on things for work that needed to be done a week ago.  I don't know how often I'll blog with my crazy work schedule lately, but know this - I'm going to blog when my brain needs it the most, that's for sure.

Did you miss the stupid learnings at the ends of my posts?  I know you did:

• I promise posts in the future that include way more bullet points.  Because the world needs more bullet points.
• I was seriously bummed about how tired my legs were during the marathon.  Sometimes you gotta suck it up and back it off.
• That donut in mile 22 was UHMAYZING
• I'm becoming very very fond of indoor cycling.  Very.
• I don't think my lats will ever fully forgive me for inflicting SuperCuts on them.  

Tomorrow's workout: The app says "rest day" which I'm interpreting as "let's get back to heavy weights already"