Day 7 Results

Day 7 - Sat, Jan 9, 2010
Well, I made it through 1 full week!! Yippeee!! Today was a good, strong day. This afternoon, I took an indoor cycling class called "Pedal Harder" at Mellow Johnny's bike shop in Austin. It was great!! I used my own bike on an indoor bike trainer, and it was incredible! I've been contemplating saving up for a bike trainer, as it pains me to see my very expensive bike sitting in the garage on the hook for 6-9 months each year. I'm still not comfortable on it yet; I'm still trying to get my body alignment and positioning right, as well as get the hang of shifting gears. Aside from riding through various neighborhoods & the Veloway, forget about actually riding on real roads! An indoor trainer will help me get used to my road bike vs. my spinning bike. This class confirmed that this item is a personal must have. The class itself was pretty cool. I was able to monitor my workout based upon power output (wattage) instead of just heart rate. Seeing that data confirmed what I always suspected - I am very powerful in my movements, but not very efficient. For instance, I had a very obvious dead spot in my pedal stroke. In my metabolic profile test last year, I also observed that I work and train very hard, but I'm also overtrained and not efficiently utilizing fat during my workouts. Training low intensity, steady state is such a challenging thing for me to do, but I've spent the past 4 weeks moving back to the aerobic base building phase, and it's actually been great! All-in-all it was a great way to spend the afternoon.

I completed my challenge later in the evening around 8:15PM. I was pumped to hit the swings again. I did a few earlier today with my clients on the 20kg and the 24kg, and, once again, that feeling was incredible.

Here are my results from today:
Swings: Used the 20kg to complete 200 swings. It took me 10 minutes with breaks (to preserve my hands). The 20kg felt GREAT! I really felt the drive in my hips, glutes, & core. Remember: try to use the right tool for the job :-)
Snatches: I did 25 snatches/side (50 total). I mixed it up using the 12kg and the 16kg. The 16kg felt great and confirmed that the 12kg is too light for me now, even for technique work. BUT, my hands were still sore and getting pinched on the descent. I tried taping them up, but that didn't work. I also tried just doing a half snatch, which helped somewhat. Bottom line is that I'll just have to let time heal my hands and train in a reduced fashion until then.

How are you doing one week into your challenge?!?! Remember: do what you can with good form and consistency. You'll make it through the 28-days. Don't beat yourself up if you miss a day or two along the way. Try your best and remember that you are doing something good for your heart, conditioning, and body composition.

Rock on, people!