Tag: treadmill

Trapped in San Diego – 60 minutes in the Fitness Center

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So, my flight to Boston last night was cancelled because of winter storm “Niko”.  A huge Nor’easter that is pummeling the northeastern United States.

(side note:  One of the main online weather services in the US, weather.com has taken to naming major storms, not just hurricanes.  I like it.  It solves a referencing problem and it’s fun to talk about storms by name…back to the narrative)

So, I am stuck in San Diego until my rescheduled depart, tonight around 9pm.  I had a conference call at 6am, so I was unable to go to Crossfit Del Mar today.  I was relegated to using the hotel fitness center.

I decided to just do 60 minutes of aerobic maintenance.

  • 30 minutes treadmill (15% grade, 3.1mph…slowed to 3.0 at about 20′, and then 2.9 at 26′ to keep HR below 145)
  • 30 minutes on the elliptical (rolling hills, level 14 of 25), HR cap < 155.

2-9a

2-9b

The treadmill felt like hard work, the elliptical felt easier, but my HR was a bit higher.

Tomorrow:  I arrive (hopefully) around 8 am.  I plan to work from home and get in a marathon plan workout.

M1 4 x 15′ / 4′ 6′ @ 5KP, 9′ @ MP 92.5% (172)

 

Monday: 4 x 15′ / 4′ (6’/9′ step down) on Treadmill

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Well, that was a very difficult workout.

I wanted to mimic the intensity of this workout, but I didn’t have an erg at my disposal, so I decided to do it on the treadmill at max incline.  I really want to avoid “real” running for now because I don’t want to cause inflammation in my newly repaired knee.

But even a slow jog at 15% grade is enough to really be really taxing.  The question was how much was enough.

I decided that I would work from HR.  I wanted the 6′ sections to bring me up into the range of 165-172 bpm, and the 9′ sections to bring me back down into the 150-160 range.  I used the first interval to experiment.  In the first 6′ interval, I started at 4.5 mph and within a minute, I knew that was way to aggressive.  I backed off to 4mph and even that was a genuine struggle.  My HR monitor picked the wrong day to act up.  You can see in the plots that there were dropouts and lags.  It might be time for a new battery.  The 9′ sections were fine at about 3.1 mph

By the last interval, I was really tired.  I slowed down to about 3.8 on the fast bit and ended up dropping the 9′ pace to around 2.8mph.  Pitifully slow, but effective.

I think that was pretty effective.  Sure was less fun on a treadmill than on the erg though.  I’m rower not a runner, that’s for sure.

Tuesday:  I’ll hit the gym to do my regularly scheduled workout.  I’ll do it by HR on the elliptical.  For MP, I will aim at having my HR around 150 by the end of 20′, for the 10KP, I will aim at 167 by the end, and for the HMP, I will split the difference.

3 x 20′ / 2′ MP, 10KP, HMP 90.0% (167)

Wednesday: 60′ of fitness center purgatory

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I really shouldn’t complain…but I will anyway.

I finished up my last meeting today around 4 and was dropped off at the Movenpick hotel at the Stuttgart airport.  I thought it would be a great thing to go work out.  I had noticed when I checked in that the fitness center had a Model D rower, and I was itching to do some long slow meters.

So, I suit myself up, put on some nice podcasts, sit down on the rower, adjust the foot height, and pull on the chain.  It was bad.  Really bad.  The clutch was going on the erg, so it would lurch and grind on the pull.  I thought it might calm down over a few pulls, but no, it was entirely unusable.

If there had been no erg, I would have contentedly toddle over to the bike and just gotten going, but my shuffle to the bike after failing on the erg was quite depressing.  I hopped on the bike and watched the minutes pass glacially toward 30.  At 30 minutes, I had had more than enough pedalling, so I moved over to the treadmill.  Here I cranked up  the incline all the way to 15% and walked briskly (at 5km/h) for another 30 minutes.

By this point, I was tired, sweaty and bored, so I decided to call it a day.

Tomorrow morning I have a 7:10am flight out of Stuttgart through London back home to Boston.  It will be good to get back to a working erg!

Wednesday: 2 x 30′ Fitness Center

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In San Diego.  Hotel Fitness Center

  • 30 minutes treadmill, 3.1 mph, 15% incline
  • 30 minutes elliptical, level 15, “rolling hills”

As boring as it sounds.

Tonight: back on the red eye.

Tomorrow:  I should do something higher intensity.  Maybe I’ll do the 15×3’/1′ with an easy-ish pace target like 1:52.

4 x 1.8km Threshold on Treadmill

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Ooof.  Hard work.

I hit the fitness center at 6am on the dot.  My legs and back are still sore from the weights, but loosened up during my warmup.

Plan:

  • 20 minute warmup with 3 – 2 minute chunks at 5:30 pace
  • 4 x 10′ (2.5% grade, 5:30/km pace)
  • 5′ recoveries (2.5% grade, 12:00/km pace)

I made it through the first two intervals at my target pace, but I needed to to dig really deep to finish  the second one.  I gave myself a break and took the pace down to 6:00/km for the last two intervals. This took just enough of the edge off so I could complete the workout.  HR monitor started to act up again in the last two intervals.

I’m really tired now.

Tonight I fly out around 5pm.  I am flying through Dallas and get home to Boston at 11pm Boston time.  I can’t wait to get home.

Sunday: Intervals, they’re good for the Seoul

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Sorry, couldn’t resist the pun.

Check out what I saw in the hotel fitness center.  Yes, indeed, that is a mechanical horse.  In fact, I saw someone riding it.  This was not a wild bucking ride like the mechanical bulls in a bar, more like the little horsies you see in small arcades.  Imagine, they had two of these things, about 40 treadmills, 20 ellipitcals, countless stair steppers, free weights, weight machines…BUT NOT A SINGLE ROWER!  Arghhhhhh!  What the hell is wrong with these people!

Sorry, back to the workout.

Plan:

  • 5 minute warmup
  • On the treadmill
  • 14 x 500m at 5:30/km and 2.5% grade
  • 1′ rest at 8’/km and 2.5% grade

At first I thought I might have made things too easy.  By the end I was pretty sure I hadn’t.  It was a struggle to get through the last few reps.  The HR monitor was problematic today.  It kept sliding down and was getting some bad readings at the beginning, and dropouts at other times.

Tomorrow:  40′ endurance plus strength.  I have all these weights here, I might as well use them.

 

Saturday: Fitness Center Drudgery

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Well, it’s Saturday morning now.  I’ve been on the road for 5 full days and I am getting tired of it.  Yesterday was another day of customer and internal meetings and I finished off with a dinner with the guy who is responsible for sales in this region.  After that, it was back to my hotel to join a couple of conference calls.  This lasted until after 2AM.

I slept from around 3 to around 7, and then headed down the the gym.  On tap for today, another fitness center triathlon.  Today, I was determined to keep it nice and easy so that I would have no excuses in another threshold session tomorrow.

Plan:

  • 30 minutes inclined march (15% grade, 3mph)
  • 30 minutes bike (“foothills” program, level 14)
  • 30 minutes elliptical (“around the world” program, level 17)

I was working out a bit later and its pretty obvious that they turn off the AC at night because it was much cooler and dryer in the fitness center at 8am than it is at 5am.  This was reflected in much lower HR and RPE for all three chunks of the workout.

For example, both yesterday and today started with a 30′ inclined march at 15% grade and 3mph.  Yesterday, my HR at 30 minutes was 151bpm.  Today, 143 bpm.

This afternoon, I am heading to the airport for a shortish flight to Korea.  I hang out there on Sunday, and then have 3 days of internal and customer meetings before I fly out on Wednesday afternoon.  It can’t come soon enough.

Tomorrow:  I think a 20 x 2 minutes on/1 minute off interval session on the treadmill.

 

Friday: 3 x 30’Sweatfest

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I remain in Taiwan.  I’m in the city of Hsinchu, which was a pretty grimy place, but is rapidly changing into a pretty cosmopolitan, energtic place.  There is ton of public art in Taiwan, and many public buildings have sculptures outside.  The featured image is probably my favorite.  It’s a sculpture outside the Hsinchu cultural center.  To give you an idea of scale, the magnifying glass is probably about 6 feet in diameter.  You can walk right through it.

Plan:

  • 30′ Inclined march on the treadmill (15% grade, 3mph)
  • 30′ run (1% grade, 5.7mph)
  • 30′ Elliptical (“Cascades”, level 14)

That wasn’t too bad.  The time seemed to pass a bit faster today.  During the first 30 minutes I listened to the NPR Politics Podcast.  They were talking about the Vice Presidential Debate.  After that I listened to the Original Cast Album of the musical Hamilton, which was great.

My biggest issue was that my shorts got so heavy with sweat that they started falling down during my run.  I needed to hoist them up every minute or so to keep from losing the around my ankles.

My HR monitor seemed to be acting up.  Popping up to higher heart rates and then dropping back down.  In general, my HR seemed to be running a bit hot today, but in terms of RPE, the workout was solidly aerobic.  I think I will change the battery in the strap just in case that’s the problem.

Here’s a measure of the humidity.

2016-10-07-06-56-43

That’s the elliptical machine after finished using it.  And, yep, that is a genuine puddle in front of the pedal.  That is sweat that ran down my leg, through my sneaker and collected there in last 30 minutes of my workout.  I think that rates an “ewww!”

 

Thursday: 30′ Threshold Run

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Yesterday I went up to Taipei for a meeting.  One of the best developments in Taiwan was the construction of a High Speed Rail line from the north end of the island to the south along the west coast.  Most of the population of Taiwan is along the western coast, the east coast is rural and wild.  It used to be miserable to get from one city to another on the clogged highways, now it is a modern marvel.  We hopped on a train in Hsinchu and we were in Taipei in less than 30 minutes.  Fantastic!

I had a couple of other meetings in the afternoon, and then I begged off of dinner with the local team.  Since I had woken up before 4AM, I was tired, and frankly, I was also weary of being with people.  I needed a little time by myself to think and recharge.

I guess I was pretty tired because I fell asleep before 8 and woke up around 4AM.  I had time for a hella long workout if I wanted, but I decided to stick to my plan for a hard threshold session.

Plan:

  • 10′ warmup on the treadmill.  Gradually speeding up.  Last 2 minutes faster than target pace.
  • 30′ Threshold run on the treadmill.  2% incline, 10km/h
  • Adjust speed as necessary to push HR well into TR through second half of the run.
  • cool down

I actually kind of enjoyed that.  I cranked up my sprinting playlist on Spotify, and generally ran to the beat.  I held 10km/hr until I had 5 minutes left.  Then I sped up just a little bit, about 0.2km/h and held that until I had 2 minutes left.  OK, 500m left, time for a last push.  I pushed the speed up another 0.4km/h and finished strong.

Not to make excuses for myself, but just an acknowledgement of reality.  I know that my running speed is slow (damn slow).  I will never win a road race, nor do I aspire to.  I enjoy a run ever now and then, and it is a hell of good way to exercise.

Today, I have a full day of internal and customer meetings, and a big team dinner.  Tomorrow morning, I’m planning another fitness center triathlon.

3×30′ HR cap at 150.

 

Wednesday: 3 x 30′ Fitness Center Triathlon

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Still in Hsinchu.  Woke up at 4am (jetlag).  Gave up trying to sleep at 5am and headed to the gym.  (pictured above)

Plan:

  • 30′ ellipitcal (“around the world” hill profile, level 17…too easy)
  • 30′ stationary bike (“classic hill profile”, basically 1′ intervals, level 18)
  • 30′ treadmill (inclined walk, 3mph, incline 11 to 12%, keeping HR just below 150)

Well, that was pretty boring.

Tomorrow:  Threshold session on treadmill.  Probably interval format.