Tag: fitness center

Tuesday: 40′ Inclined March in Hsinchu

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After flying from Boston to Tokyo, waiting around for a couple hours, then flying on to Taipei and taking a car from there to Hsinchu, I arrived at my hotel around 10pm.  Roughly 21 hours of travel time.  I slept about an hour on the first flight and maybe 2 hours on the second one.  I knew I needed a full nights sleep and I didn’t trust my body’s internal clock to let that happen, so I took an ambien and was out cold for 6 hours.

I set the alarm for 4:45 so that I could get a quick workout in before I needed to head to the office at 6:30.  I was in the hotel gym at 5am, and I figure I had time for a 40 minute workout.

I decided to keep it pretty tame, so I headed to a treadmill and set the incline to 15% and the pace to 3mph, basically a fast walk.  When I’ve done this workout in the past, I end up with a HR that rises steadily through the session, today was no exception.  I slowed to 2.8mph with 5 minutes to go, and then back up to 3.2 for the last 2 minutes.

It was humid in the gym and I was very sweaty when I finished.

Tomorrow:  I have more time tomorrow morning, so I think I will do a fitness center triathlon 3 x 30′ on different machines.

Wednesday: 3 x 30′ UT2/UT1

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Still in Shanghai.  I fly to Kumamoto early this afternoon, so I had time for a nice(?), long session in the fitness center.

  • 30′ incline treadmill (15% grade, 3.3mph)
  • 30′ Stationary bike (random profile, 15/25 load)
  • 30′ elliptical (rolling hills, 15/25 load)
  • HR limit ~150.  OK to exceed that briefly with variable load
  • ~1′ between machines

What a bore.  Listened to NPR’s “Ask Me Another” game show, and then a the “Daily Tech News Podcast”.  That got me into the last 30 minutes, when I needed a bit more motivation.  I switched over and listened to Steely Dan’s “Gaucho”, which brought me home in mellow style.

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Tomorrow: 60′ treadmill threshold run.

Tuesday: 45′ Threshold on Treadmill

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In Shanghai.

Nice fitness center, but no ergs in sight.

Plan called for a 10K run, but at 6am, I was surprised with an invitation to a conference call scheduled for 7am.  I only had time for 45 minutes in the gym, so I just set the treadmill to 2% grade, 6mph and 45′ and went.

It was just about right in terms of training effect, maybe I could have pushed just a little bit harder, but not much.  I saw some weird HR monitor effects in the second half of the run, but it was above UT for the last 25 minutes.  I’ll try the H7 tomorrow to see if that’s better.

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Tomorrow:  Plan calls for for 80′ of UT2/UT1.  I’ll probably do some kind of a fitness center triathlon.

Wednesday: 80′ of UT2

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Still in San Francisco.  I headed down to the fitness center around 7am.  The training plan called for a 4×20’/1′ with a HR cap at 150.  What I ended up doing was.

  • 30′ on the elliptical
  • 30′ on the stationary bike
  • 20′ on the treadmill at 15% incline
  • HR cap of 150. (I got no where near it)

My HR was remarkably low today.  Maybe it was fatigue in my legs from the two treadmill sessions that was holding me back, but this felt like a lot more work than the HR indicated.  I flirted with the idea of doing 3 x 30′, but I was running out of time and cut the last chunk down to 20 minutes

I am going to be trying to err on the side of going too slow for my long sessions versus pushing the pace, and HR up against the high side of the limits.  I’ll get plenty of intensity on my hard distance days, I really just want to pile up easy meters on the other days.  This will be a challenge for me.

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Tomorrow:  The plan calls for another hard 60′ session, but I don’t think I’ll be able to fit a session in.  I need to drive down from San Francisco to San Jose and get there for a 9am meeting.  I also have a customer dinner tonight that I won’t get back from until around midnight.  It’s likely that sleeping with win over exercising tomorrow morning.

Then tomorrow night, I fly back home on the redeye.  I’m hoping to do a good technique session on Friday afternoon.

 

Tuesday: 60′ Threshold

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Again in the fitness center.

Plan:

  • 10km
  • Treadmill at 2% grade
  • Pace at 9.0 km/h

The idea was to mimic a hard 60′ erg session.  Typical my HR will rise slowly through these types of workouts and finish up in the low 170s.  I was having all kinds of HR sensor troubles today.  Not sure why.  I thought it was just a contact issue since it seemed to get better when I would reposition the strap on my chest, but eventually, around 55′, the whole wahoo fitness app crashed on me.  When I restarted it, it seemed like the readings were much better behaved, so maybe the app was just in a unhappy state before it died.  I think the high HRs recorded are accurate and the low ones are erroneous.   The red line is my best guess as to what the HR was actually doing.

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I was starting to really struggle in the last 15 minutes, and at 60′, with about 1000m to go, I needed to back off the pace.  I slowed down to 8mph and that took a lot of the pressure off.

The training effect was basically what I was looking for.  Push HR up into the TR zone in the last third of the workout and work on just grinding it out.

Tomorrow:  Long and slow.  I will probably do a fitness center triathlon.  4 x 20′ / 1′ rests with a HR cap of 150.

Monday: 40′ UT2

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I was planning a rest day, but after I checked into my hotel, I had a little extra time.  So, I popped down to the fitness center for a quick session.  I just wanted to work out the kinks from flying all day, really.

Plan:

  • 40′
  • Inclined walk on treadmill (15% grade)
  • Start at about 3.5mph and slow down as required to stay below 145 HR cap

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I finished at about 2.9mph.

Thursday: 4 x 20′ / 1′ L4

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Tuesday:  Arrived in Munich at 10AM.  Showered, connected by plane to Stuttgart.  Meetings with customer in the afternoon, back to the airport, flew to Paris, connected to Marseille.  Got to my hotel at midnight. No Training

Wednesday:  Decided to sleep in, instead of trying to workout.  Prep sessions all morning, customer meeting in  the afternoon, then back to the airport to fly back to Munich.  Arrived at the airport around 8:30PM, took the s-bahn  to my hotel.  Met with a couple of colleagues at the hotel.  Got  to bed around 1AM. No Training

Thursday:  Up at 7:30AM for a breakfast meeting with a customer.  That finished around 10AM.  My flight leaves around 4:10PM, so finally, I had a window to go to the gym.  I went to the hotel fitness center and saw a meticulously clean Concept2 Model E with a PM4.  Yesss!!!

Plan:

  • 4 x 20′ / 1′ rest
  • L4 format.  Power target –> 10W x stroke rate (16spm = 160W, etc)
  • HR Cap: 156

I figured with all the flying around, irregular meals and reasonable consumption of beer, that this would be a difficult session.  I was right.

I started slow and within 10 minutes I knew that I would struggle.  Here’s the stroke sequences I did.

  • 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20
  • 16 / 17 / 18 / 19/ 20
  • 3′ @ 16 / 3′ @ 17 / 3′ @ 18 / 1′ @ 19
  • 3′ @ 16 / 3′ @ 17 / 3′ @ 18 / 1′ @ 19
  • 4′ @ 16 / 3′ @ 17 / 2′ @ 18 / 1′ @ 19 (dropped off the target power in this one)
  • 4′ @ 16 / 3′ @ 17 / 2′ @ 18 / 1′ @ 19
  • 10′ @ 16
  • 9′ @ 16 / 1′ @ 20

Very disappointed with what has happened to my aerobic fitness.  But pleased with the gigantic puddles under the erg.

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Tomorrow:  Sprint session in the boat.  6 x 750 / 5′ rest.

Wednesday: 50′ in the Fitness Center

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Nothing special, just trying to not lose fitness while I travel.

  • 30 minutes of a flat run (around 3% grade and 5.5 mph)
  • 1′ break
  • 20 minutes inclined walk (15% grade, 3.0 to 3.5 mph)

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Tomorrow:  Probably another session in the fitness center, or maybe a run (but it’s pretty freakishly hot here).

 

Catching Up: Thursday to Tuesday

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Things remain a bit hectic.  I’ve been focused on trying to squeeze in what I can.

Thursday:  I was down in Austin for a customer meeting, a big “Supplier Day” where a company invites in their largest suppliers and tells them where their business is going and what they need from suppliers.  A useful way to meet a lot of key people, but the whole time I keep thinking about other things that I need to get done.

In the morning, I popped down to the fitness center and did 30 minutes on the treadmill (max incline – 15% and around 3.5mph), aiming to upper end UT1 heart rate.  Then 30 minutes on the stationary bike, aiming at UT2.Screen Shot 2016-05-24 at 10.11.20 AM

It was kind of interesting.  There was a huge thunderstorm going on while I was working out.  Lot’s of thunder and lightning and it was raining like crazy!

Friday:  Up at 4:15 to get to the airport to catch an early flight.  Then straight into meetings on the phone once I got home.  No time to work out.

Saturday:  Busy day, rushing around.  shopping.  Painting a ceiling.  I managed to squeeze in an erg session.  I wanted a bit of intensity, but I wasn’t in the mood to go really deep.  So I decided to do a 10K push, but start off slower (at 2:04), and end at 1:55.

It was harder than it should have been, but I actually enjoyed it.  I started with a 2K warmup.

The main event.  Starting target was 2:04 for 1K, then 2:03 for 1K, and so on until I got down to 1:55 target for the last 1K.  Of course, I just went for broke in the last bit.

It stung a bit.

The cool down.  2K slowing down from 2:00 to 2:15 in 500 chunks

Sunday:  I caught a plane at 9AM out to Las Vegas.  We are having an internal team meeting here for a few days.  I arrived around 3PM and headed to to gym, hoping for some fun workout options.  There were none.  I was consigned to the usual treadmills, bikes, ellipticals, etc.  I did 30 minutes on the treadmill at a 2% incline, and a slow trot, maybe 4.5 mph.  I slowed a bit in the last 5 minutes of that to try to stick to a HR cap around 150.  Then I grabbed a drink, and did another 30 minutes on the treadmill on the max incline (15%, around 3.5 mph).

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Monday:  We got back to the hotel around 10 and I escaped the bar by around 11.  I headed straight up to bed, pounded down a liter of water and collapsed into bed.  I woke up with the alarm at 5:30, and then headed down down to  the depressing little fitness center to workout.  This morning the menu was 30 minutes on the treadmill at maximum incline (15%) and about 3.5 mph.  Then 30 minutes on the one of those new, improved elliptical machines that have more independent leg motions

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Tuesday:  On Monday night, I crawled into bed around midnight having had a bit too much to drink and feeling a bit worse for wear.  But I felt pretty alert at 5:30 in the morning when my alarm went off.  This morning, I was certain that I had no interest in returning to the sad little fitness center, so I decided to run the strip.  This was a great decision.  I ran along in front of all the fancy casinos and hotels for about 4 km down and 4 km back.  One thing that made it a bit more interesting and tiring was all of the pedestrian overpasses.  Each of the pace decreases below is me climbing a couple of flight of stairs, and the coming back down.

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Now, I am sitting here at the airport   My flight has been delayed almost 2 hours and I am getting very tired and sleepy.  This could be a pretty rough wait.

Tomorrow:  First priority, enough sleep.  Second priority is a quick erg session.

 

 

50′ in the Fitness Center 

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I had planned to head out to a crossfit box, but I was up later (and drank more) than I had planned. 

I’m at a conference for users of our products, and part of being a good host is hanging in the bar and buying a few rounds of drinks. 

Anyway, I decided to sleep a bit longer and do a short maintenance session in the hotel fitness center. 

30 minutes inclined walk (15deg, 3.2mph)

20 minutes stationary bike with a rolling hills workout programmed. 


I fly home tonight. Back to the erg on slides tomorrow morning. Another easy endurance session.