Week 14 - Day 6 - Paris-Roubaix!

I didn't ride today.  But I watched bike racing, does that count?  Paris-Roubaix was on TV today, and it's one of my favorite races to watch.  And this year was no exception.  I'm not going to recap the whole thing, so feel free to read about it on VeloNews HERE.  Or check out their photo gallery HERE.  My biggest disappointment was that Peter Sagan wasn't there.  If he entered this race, he would have been my favorite to win this year.

No time to write much else today.  Kind of a disappointing day.  The weather is going to take a turn for the worse in a couple days, so I really should have taken advantage of today's good weather.  But the family got up too late for me to get to a group ride I wanted to attend, and then we had the usual groceries, laundry, etc., that we needed to do.  And I needed a haircut, which took way longer than necessary.  I think everyone in town decided to get a haircut today.  Long story short, I just never had the time to get out.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Steak fajita burrito at Chipotle
• Dinner: Chicken with chorizo confetti.  We had this a couple weeks ago, too.  Love it.  I'm a huge fan of chorizo.
• Dessert!:  It was such a nice day, we decided to go get some froyo for dessert.  Yogurt Yum!

Exercise:

• None.  Disappointing.

Today's weigh-in:  191.2.  Wow,  that sucks.

Week 14 - Day 5 - More riding

Nice day today.  I was happy to have some time for a decent bike ride this morning.  I was able to get out for a few hours before lunch today.  A nice ride north of home, on fairly empty county roads.  I felt pretty good the entire time, and probably could have written a lot harder.  One of the nice things about riding near my house is the long, straight, relatively flat roads.  Unfortunately, I really need to do some climbing.  Hoping to do some rides further west soon, where I can get in some hill-climbing.

After lunch, my daughter wanted to do another run.  But this time she wanted to use her roller skates.  She thought she would be able to go faster than jogging, without getting as tired.  Unfortunately, once we got going, she realized it was going to be a lot harder than she thought.  So I ended up walking with her while she skated.  We cut that part of the run short, and I dropped the kids off back at home.  Once they were home, I continued on with my run, and got in another couple miles.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  I was super-hungry after my ride, so I got a steak fajita burrito from Chipotle.
• Dinner:  We dropped off the kids at Lifetime Fitness for a Parent's Night Out.  My wife and I headed over to Hacienda Colorado.  I had some steak fajitas.

Exercise:

• 40+ mile bike ride this morning.  Strava and Garmin Connect.
• Little run around the neighborhood this afternoon.  About 3 1/2 miles.

Today's weigh-in:  188.6

Week 14 - Day 4 - Riding!

Good amount of riding today.  Well, good for a work day at least.  The Rockies home opener was today, and Coors Field is a block from my office.  Opening day is typically pretty crazy, so I decided to ride my bike to work today.  I would love to ride to work every day, but it just doesn't work with all the meetings I have to go to, plus taking the kids to and from school every day.   But I was happy to squeeze one day in.

Then, I was also able to get in a ride at lunch.  So, that was nice.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Protein bar when I got to the office
• Lunch:  Protein bar at my desk
• Dinner:  Went out to Lone Star for steaks.  Yay for steak and broccoli.  Boo for bacon-cheese fries. (But really, yay!)

Exercise:

• Riding to and from work.  About 13 1/2 miles each way.
• Plus, a ride at lunch. About 17 miles.

Today's weigh-in:  186.8

Week 14 - Day 3

I'm not in the mood to type much tonight.  Just sitting on the couch typing, probably going to watch something on the DVR in a bit.  Looking forward to tomorrow.  It's Rockies opening day, so it's going to be a madhouse near my office, since we are only a block from Coors Field.  In order to avoid the craziness, I decided to ride my bike to work.  First time I've done that in a while.  I would love to ride all the time, but that doesn't really work with trying to get the kids to school in the morning, and pick them up in the evening.  But I got my wife to take those duties for a day so I could ride to work.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Protein bar after my bike ride
• Dinner:  Philly cheesesteak skillet

Exercise:

• Bike ride at lunch.  Strava and Garmin Connect.
• Little jog around the neighborhood.  Brought the kids with me.  My daughter jogged with me, and my son rode his bike.

Today's weigh-in:  188.2

Week 14 - Day 2 - Great day!

I managed to get in a lunchtime ride today, along with some time on the elliptical during my kids' swim lessons at Lifetime Fitness.  And the weight just came pouring off today for some reason.

I life being able to get out and ride during lunch, but trying to get changed into bike clothes, get in a decent ride, get back to the office and get showered and changed within an hour makes for a shorter ride than I would like.  I am hoping to shorten my prep time so I can get in a few extra minutes of riding.  And I need to figure out somewhere decent to ride.  From my office, I am really close to the Platte River Trail, and I can easily crank out a decent ride heading north.  It's not the prettiest ride, but the trail is pretty empty up that way, which is nice.  I can really get some speed going without have to weave around too many people.  The other nearby trails, the Platte River heading south, and the Cherry Creek Trail, are both going to be quite a bit more crowded.  Well, definitely the Cherry Creek Trail.  I assume the Platte will be similar.

I'm trying to figure out some decent roads to ride on.  It's definitely quite a bit different from the country roads up near my house.  I have a few ideas, but I don't know if I will have time.  I have my mountain bike at work, which I can't push as fast as my road bike, so the rides will have to be a little shorter.

I'm definitely grateful I work at a bike-friendly office with decent bike parking/storage, and showers.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Protein bar when I got back from my bike ride.
• Dinner:  Tossed salad with some grilled chicken

Exercise:

• One hour ride at lunch, heading north on the Platte River Trail.  Strava report HERE, and Garmin Connect HERE.
• 20 minutes on an elliptical while the kids were in swimming lessons.  Listened to an episode of Stuff You Should Know, one of my favorite podcasts.

Today's weigh-in:  186.4.  That's just bonkers.

Week 14 - Day 1 - stupid workout

Really annoyed at tonight's workout.  Tonight was an aerobic-base workout, so I decided to do Spinervals 17.0 - Aero Base Builder II.  I hopped on the bike and started the warm-up, and realized I forgot to turn off the GPS function on my computer.  So, I stopped, reset the computer and turned off the GPS, and restarted the workout.  After a couple minutes, I realized the cleat on one of my shoes was loose, so I stopped, fixed it, tightened up my pedals while I was at it, and hopped back on.  I rode for another minute or so, and realized I needed to go to the bathroom.  So, I stopped, ran inside, went to the bathroom, came back out, and started riding again.  Everything was good for about another 45 minutes, and then I decided on a whim to clear away some of the notifications on my tablet.  Well, when I started clearing away the notifications, something went screwy, and it restarted the video from the beginning.  Then, the tablet stopped responding to my touches.  I ended up having to reboot.  Once it finally rebooted, I had to open and fast forward through the video, and try to figure out where I had stopped before.  All in all, just a really annoying workout.  It was supposed to be a really steady aerobic workout, but I ended up starting and stopping so much, I didn't get the full benefit of the workout.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Free lunch at work.  Turkey sandwich, chips and a cookie
• Dinner:  Prosciutto-stuffed chicken breast and broccoli

Exercise:

• 80 minutes or so on the trainer.  Spinervals 17.0 - Aero Base Builder II.  Because everything was so screwed up, there's really no point in comparing this workout to previous versions of the same workout.  Strava report HERE, and Garmin Connect HERE.

Today's weigh-in:  191.8

End of Week 13

Feeling a little better today.  Back on the bike tonight, and I certainly felt stronger than last night.  Those wings were a killer last night.  Tonight's salad was a little easier on the stomach.

I had planned to do some riding at lunch today, but a last-minute meeting came up, so I spent lunch indoors again.  I will need to miss lunchtime rides over the next couple days as well.  But lunch rides are looking good for Thursday and Friday this week.  The weather should improve by then, too.

Food:

• Breakfast: Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Protein bar at my desk
• Dinner:  Chicken caesar salad

Exercise:

• 60 minutes on the trainer.  Spinervals 24.0 - HILLacious.  Send time I've done this ride, and I really like it.  It gets the heart rate up pretty high, and does a pretty good job of simulating a variety of types of climbs.  I last did this ride about 3 weeks ago.  Unfortunately, I really didn't improve from the last time.  You can see the comparison HERE.  On average, I was about 4 second/mile slower than the last time.  Strava report HERE and Garmin Connect HERE.

Today's weigh-in:  191.4