Fitness Update

You may have noticed that I haven't been posting much about my workouts recently. I started to feel like people probably weren't interested in reading every detail of every monotonous run I took on the same city streets that I have been running and writing about for months. So I am trying to incorporate more posts on style, food, and bike America planning. But then I realized that it has been a long time since I gave you any fitness updates at all. For all you know, I could be sitting around eating cake every day after work. Don't get me wrong, I'm probably eating more cake than I should, but I'm also sweating hard and getting my legs strong and ready for this summer's bike trip. Above, you can see what my typical week of exercise has looked like over the past month or two.

I have been feeling really good about my workouts recently. I am exercising more days a week, and am far more motivated, than I was during my last half marathon training cycle. You can see I've been running only 1-2 days a week which is a change but it is nice to not have any worry about distance or speed. I have been doing quicker, shorter runs to keep the impact low but have been making an effort to push really hard. Half the time I'm not even wearing my garmin. If I'm breathing heavy and I feel a burn in my legs then I feel accomplished.

More importantly, though, I feel like I've become a much stronger cyclist over the past few months. For the first time in my life, I'm treating cycling like I did running. I've always loved to ride a bike but, in the past, it's been part social activity, part exercise. I liked to pedal hard uphill and cruise down, spending a good amount of time not pedaling. Now, I think in large part due to my spin workouts, I have no desire to ever stop pedaling when I'm on my bike. I want to use every ounce of muscle strength I have and I want to feel a consistent burn, just like I do when I run.

In an effort not to spoil all the content for next week's Bike America post on training, I'm going to stop there. But I just wanted to reassure everyone, because I know you've been on the edge of your seats with curiosity, that I have been sweating hard and loving life because of it. And now I'm off to skip my core class/weights/bike session to spend the night dancing my butt off at my second Red Hot Chili Peppers concert in two months!