Hospital Workout 2

The Workout:
fartlek - 1hr

I was feeling pretty good again last night and went out for another fartlek style workout. This time, I took 5 laps around the hospital campus. In the first lap, I identified several interesting areas and made up some basic drills or exercises to do there. On each successive lap, I would change the exercise a bit to keep them interesting. Once again, I treked (briskly walked) up and down the stairs and steep stuff and jogged between exercise areas without rest.

View From Our Room

1. At the dip bar, I would traverse back and forth 3 times in the dead hang position, scramble myself up to a dip position and walk across and back and then finish up with some sort of both feet & both hands monkey hang traverse.

2. At a 10 degree pitched grassy hill I would crab walk up it feet first, turn around and dog walk down on all fours, hands first. On the way up, I had to rely on my hamstrings to pull me up the hill and my arms, shoulders, stomach and back to support most of my weight. On the way back down, my triceps, shoulders and pecs did most of the work. (This is a suprisingly effective workout for butt, hamstrings, shoulders, pectorals, triceps, stomach and back!)
3. In a long empty parking garage, I jogged down on the line of concrete car stops, hopping from one to the next working on balance and focus. It became more difficult to maintain balance on the last two or so laps as I got tired and started to lose focus.

Another fun workout for the books. It really reminded me of being in highschool and running around Yellow Springs at night as I discovered tons of cool little nooks and crannies of the hospital grounds. We're headed home today if Bethany's doctor will ever show up to clear her so I won't be out again tonight. I have however rediscovered the benefits of having unstructured exercise from time to time. As long as I keep to an underlying theme like "1hr of continuous low level cardio", it can be quite an effective workout and more importantly it does a lot to keep things fresh and stave off workout burnout.

Hospital Workout 1

The Workout: fartlek with pack - 1hr

Last night, Noah Andrew Hagberg was born at 11:02pm (4/22). He is a beautiful little man beast, weighing in at 10lbs 3oz. Bethany and I had a fairly sleepless night getting him squared away and her recovered. Lucky for us, he slept a solid 5 hrs in the morning that let us get in some ZZZs. We all napped intermittently throughout the day and by nightfall, I was feeling pretty good albeit antsy from having been stuck in a hospital room for almost 24 hours. Around 9pm, Bethany and Noah were doing well and the nursing staff was great so I decided to get in a quick workout. I loaded up my AR pack, threw on a water belt fannie pack, donned my headlamp and hit the streets. Not wanting to stray too far in case I was needed, I turned the hospital campus and surrounding hills into a workout heaven. I basically just ran all over the place. Up and down stairwells and grassy hills, through parking garages, ducking in and out of the landscaping, over fences, under gates and so on. At one point I found what I thought would turn out to be a full exercise trail. There was what looked like a dip bar setup behind a large retaining wall. The only difference was it was about 8' tall and maybe 15' long. I could both hang from it as well as do dips and hand walks across it. After 40 minutes of this type of random play, I took a trek up the back side of Beaucatcher mtn to the radio tower and back on city streets and a gravel road. The final trek is the only place I used my headlamp as I wasn't interested in getting noticed by Hospital security. I kept my pace to an easy jog anywhere from moderate downhill to moderate uphill. Any stairs or steep stuff, I kept a brisk walk to develop my trekking muscles. The trekking (walking) proved to be just as tough as anything else after a while since my leg muscles have basically been built by a running form. My overall goals were to get in an all around good cardio workout, keep my heart rate low, keep moving for the whole hour and to have fun with some unstructured exercise. The whole workout was interesting and "fresh". 

I got back to our room to find an exhausted mom holding a fussy baby. Who can blame young Noah for feeling out of sorts; his whole world just got exponentially bigger and a lot more hi-def all at once.  After a shotgun shower and change, I took the night shift so Bethany could get some shut-eye. I must admit it was hard keeping my eyes open as I slow danced Noah around the dimly lit room. He finally settled down and I took a peek to confirm he was knocked out only to find his twinkling little eyes looking back up at me. Total heart melt.  I sat down on the couch with him propped up on my knees and we quietly checked each other out for about 15 minutes before he drifted off to sleep. That was just incredible.

14 mile spin and new book

The Workout:
14 mile road bike - Zone 2

Today I took an hour and a half during Ellie's nap today to head out for a road ride. It was in the low sixties and quite comfortable. I rode the two miles down to the French Broad river velodrome at a moderate pace. Once there I tossed the bike on my shoulder and ran the stairs. On the other side, I stretched for a few minutes and then pulled out into the empty track. The first mile, I altnerated laps both legs, left leg only, both legs, right leg only to work on spinning efficiency and full stroke strength on each leg. After that, I rode normally except for doing those alternating leg drill miles every third mile for a total of 10 miles on the track. At the end, I ran the ramps over the track with bike on shoulder for practice. I wanted to keep riding but zipped home knowing that Bethany could drop baby any day now.

Later at the park between us flying kites and playing with tadpoles, I busted out some handstands.

notes:
I rode with an mp3 player today. I have put this off until now so I could maintain focus but it was a nice addition and I still felt focused during the track session.

Bethany got me a book "Going Long" on Ironman distance Triathlons thinking that I could pull some useful techniques and workouts and apply them to our 30 hr AR in September. I am only two chapters in and have already found a lot of useful information. I think it will be a valuable tool in my informational arsenal and who knows... maybe one day I will attempt to bite off an Ironman.

Devil's Courthouse

The workout:
40 minute hike

Hopefully our last hike as a threesome.

Two years ago, when Bethany was 10 days overdue with Ellie, we took a jaunt down to Devil's Courthouse. It is a large cliff overlooking the South Carolina flatlands that is accessible via a short but steep 20 minute hike from a southern Blue Ridge Parkway pull off. The idea was that the would cause Bethany to go into labor. Nothing happened on the labor front but we did have a great hike and got a classic sillouette picture of Bethany's belly in front of the setting sun.

Bethany's is due to have Noah tomorrow so I took the afternoon off and we decided to make the hike a tradition. This time Ellie came with us and I was impressed as both ladies hiked to the top with style.

45 min gym cardio workout

The Workout:
45 minute cardio workout

1 mile run - treadmill, level, 7:45 min
1,000 ft climb - stair master, level 7
1 mile run - treadmill, level, 7:45 min
Row machine - level 8, 10 min
50 decline sit ups
1 mile run - treadmill, level, 7:45 min

I was a bit tentative after my weekend excursion but after 3 solid days of resting, I was ready to get in a lunch workout. I made a deal with myself to take 1 week off from running every time my ITB feels like it might be acting up and it felt a little stiff on Friday. The loophole in this little agreement is that running on an impact dampened treadmill with moderate speeds, no incline and for short distances doesn't count against me. It is a beautiful day today with blue skies @ 77 degrees but honoring that agreement, I headed for the Gym. Fortunately I had the place to myself. On the treadmill, I could watch myself run from the side and try out little postural tweaks. While not perfect, my running form seems fairly clean. I felt like I could run a 7:45 pace all day. The stair master is getting noticeably easier. The row machine felt good but I'm not pushing that hard. It felt weird to wrap things up after only 45 minutes but was decent for a designated light day.

Mt. Pisgah ride & hike

The Workout:
bike 40 miles
hike 3 miles
total duration( 5hrs 45min)

This morning I woke at 4:15 am to start phase II of my Mt. Pisgah project. I downed my usual regimen of oatmeal and a banana and hit the road on my bike. Once again, I had a relaxed 8 mile warm-up to the B.R. Parkway. It was a moonless morning and quite dark which made for the perfect opportunity to test out my new head lamp. Temperatures were in the mid 40s so the double tights, double gloves, Marmot rain shell and balaclava really paid off.

I read a quote from Ian Adamson somewhere about how much weight to carry that was along the lines of "In adventure racing, if you are not hungry, then you are eating too much. If you are not thirsty, then you are drinking too much and if you are not cold, then you are wearing too many clothes." This is a bit extreme but I understand the intent. I take it too mean that you should only have enough food, water and clothing to exist just on the uncomfortable side of things. When training, I allow myself to get on the heavy side of things with my food/water supplies but I try to be militant about the temperature issue. Allowing oneself to get too warm in cooler weather can lead to a fast table turning towards extreme cold and possibly hypothermia. Excess sweating not only dehydrates you, but wet clothes suck at insulating you from the cold. Sure you may be hot on a climb, but as soon as you start descending, you stop generating body heat from pedaling and you can get cold dangerously fast.

Keeping that in mind, I stopped just shy of the Parkway on-ramp (2100') at the entrance to the NC Arboretum to reconfigure for the 16 mile climb that lay ahead. I stripped down to a single pair of fingerless gloves, long sleeve under armor shirt, bike shorts and folded up my tights exposing my calves. I hurried to get back on the bike as I felt my body heat escaping into the cold air around me. A few minutes into the climb, I warmed up to almost comfortable and only the tips of my smaller fingers were complaining. The air temperature continued to drop as I climbed but fortunately the road was steep enough to keep from getting too cold. Around 10 miles into the climb, the sky began to lighten and after 14 miles the sun finally peeked its head over the mountains to the East. I stopped to take a few pictures at Mills River Gap overlook (4032') and then again after Big Ridge Valley overlook(4210') to snap some shots of Mt. Pisgah. I was very impressed by how quickly I got cold just by stopping for a minute or two, taking off a glove and taking 4 or 5 pictures. I often get a little dramatic on my little adventures but it made me think about mountaineers on Everest who end up loosing all the fingers on one hand from having momentarily taken off a glove and snapping a picture on the Summit.

Back in the saddle for another 45 minutes and I was through Buck Spring Tunnel just before Mt. Pisgah parking lot. Just past the tunnel, I carried my bike into the woods 50yds or so and hid and locked it in the middle of a huge Rhododendron bush. After a quick duke (booyow for thinking to bring a bit of t.p.), I changed into my trail shoes and hiked up the ridge to Pisgah trail. 25 minutes of hiking/jogging later I was standing on top of Mt. Pisgah (5685') on a large wooden platform just below the WLOS television tower. Time to summit from my front door was 3 hours and 25 minutes. There were plenty of clouds in the sky but just enough gaps to produce stunning rays of sun slicing down into the valleys below. I was blown away with a 360 degree view between cloud and ground and 15 - 20 miles of visibility. I took several pictures (which of course hardly do the view justice), put in my triumphant call to the ladies at home and headed back down.

Back at my bike, I switched to thick wool socks and put on virtually all the clothing I had for the descent down Hwy 151 into Hominy valley. My only exposed skin was a few millimeters between my sun glasses and balaclava. 20 minutes in the shade at ~20mph, no pedaling required on the steep and windy road and my fingers felt like they would fall off even with 2 pair of fully fingered gloves. Thanks to the wool socks and thicker jacket, these would be the only body parts to suffer this time around. The whole ride home took just shy of two hours but seemed much quicker. I was much more comfortable riding around the traffic of 19/23 but still badly need a little side view mirror for my helmet. I actually felt pretty good when it was all said and done which I attribute mostly to staying on top of eating and drinking throughout the endeavor.

At home I grabbed a hot shower and we all went out to an awesome lunch at the Asiana Buffet. Later I took an hour and a half nap before being woken up and notified that we were to spend the rest of the day looking at 4 houses. I was pretty grumpy out of the gates but cheered up once I fully woke up. I am somewhat skeptical about how we're ever going to keep the sleep monsters at bay for a 30 hr race this September.

Lunch run w/ pack

The Workout:
4.5 mile jog w/ backpack
3 sets of 3 hs push-ups

It might be our last nice day for a few weeks so I couldn't pass up the lunch run. Today I did a something different by running with a pack full of work clothes, books and H20. At ~10lbs it was very manageable and comfortable. My cardio is getting better and I'm maintaining a fairly low heart rate at slower speeds. Around mile 3, my left ITB felt a little stiff so I slowed to a fast walk. After about a half mile I decided to try running fast to see if it still hurt. It didn't so I finished the last mile (mostly uphill) at a decent clip. My legs just don't seem to agree with low impact, short strided chi-running no matter how energy efficient it is. I will take tomorrow off and plan to
bike Sunday morning.

Jason texted me 3 sets of 3 last night so I was obliged to match him.

Gym cardio workout

The Workout:
1.5 hr cardio

Treadmill - flat, 1mi, 8min
Stairmaster - lvl 6, 1040vft, 12min
Pushups - 30
Row machine – lvl 8, 10min
Pushups – 30
Situps – 30
Treadmill – flat, 1mi, 8min
Stationary bike – 10 min
Pushups - 30
Crunches - 25, situps - 10
Treadmill – flat, 1mi 8min
stretching - 5min

Recovery workout in gym

The Workout:
1 hour in gym
1.5 miles walking on treadmill
upper body cardio circuit - 35 min
stretching - 10 min

This evening I crashed the gym for a little while on the way back in to work. My objective was to just get the blood flowing and do a little upper body work.

Short Pisgah loop - Road Ride

The Workout:
37 mi road ride (3hrs 10min)
Home -> Parkway -> Hwy 151 -> 19/23 -> Home


Having rained all day Friday and Saturday, mountain biking this weekend was out and I promised myself I wouldn't run for a week from Wednesday. It was nice spending all day Saturday with the family just relaxing and piddling around the house. That afternoon, Bethany and I dropped Ellie off at "Grandma" Stephanie's and went to watch Leather Heads in Hendersonville. It was a chill day that we all sorely needed but I was still chomping at the bit to get in some sort of excursion.

Saturday night I hatched a plan for an adventure Sunday. Sunday had quickly filled up with plans to go to the Nature Center at 10am and house hunting later that afternoon so there wasn't much time to squeeze in a ride. Around 11:30pm I had decided on a basic loop road ride up towards Mt. Pisgah that would take around 4 hours. I formulated two extension options in case I was just crushing it and still feeling good. If I was to be back in time for our other obligations, I'd have to leave by 6am at the latest. I spent the next hour swapping my mtn bike tires for slicks, planning, and getting all of my lights, food, clothing, water, maps and miscellaneous gear packed.

My alarm wasn't set correctly so I didn't wake up until nearly 6am. Not all that concerned I got dressed, downed a bowl of oatmeal and made one last effort to find my big head lamp. After striking out in the light department, I slapped my small LED headlamp on my helmet, donned my pack and hit the street. The roads were still damp from the previous night's rain but not enough to get me very wet. I rode with a relaxed pace and did some on-bike stretching as I passed the Biltmore mall. After 9 miles of rolling terrain, I climbed up the ramp to the Blue Ridge Parkway and pulled off into the French Broad River overlook parking area. This parking lot (2100' ASL) overlooks the French Broad River and the Skyland area. I couldn't see any of it due to the thick fog that still hung around. There is around 11.8 miles of continuous climbing from there to the intersection of Hwy 151 at Elk Pasture Gap (4200' ASL). I peeled down to my under armor shirt, bike shorts and one pair of fingered gloves. It was quite cold but I knew the climbing would warm me right up. It sure did.

The climb took about an hour and a half and was slow and methodical. The fog closed in and I got the distinct impression I was riding on a treadmill for several miles. One small excitement came in the form of having to dodge the thousands of night crawlers in the midst of a soggy asphalt pilgrimage. If I didn't dodge, they would squish on my tire and get slung up into the underside of my down tube or onto my back. EEEWWWWW! Around mile 7, a gaggle of turkeys ran out of the grass, jumped into the air and flew across the road in front of me and up into the trees with the grace of a herd of elephants. I don't think I've ever seen a turkey in a tree and this struck me as a funny sight for some reason. What little traffic I saw seemed to pass only as I was going through the several mountain tunnels on that road. My dim headlamp was pretty pathetic but cast just enough light to keep me from running off the road into the walls. I drank a mouthful every 15 minutes or so and ate something every 45.

After mile 10 I rounded a corner and got to experience a series of unbelievable sights. The sun had just appeared over the ridge to my back and shown past me through the fog creating a perfect, VIVID, circular rainbow that looked to be about 30 ft in diameter and 30 ft in front of me with its base sitting just above the pavement. It seemed as I though I could ride through it like a giant hula hoop. A quarter mile later I began noticing my ceiling changing from dull white to blue. A few pedal strokes later and I was above the top of the fog and into crystal clear blue skies. Mt. Pisgah lay directly ahead and stuck up out of the dense clouds like an Island in the sea. Everything below me was white. Everything above, a brilliant blue. Having rounded the corner, I was back in shadow of the ridge but the sun behind me lit up the mountain like a spot light. It was truly breathtaking and I'm still cursing myself for not bringing a camera! I rode the remaining mile or so to Hwy 151 and decided to turn around. If I didn't have a camera, I'd better go back and just sit for a while to take it all in. I hammered the pedals back to the rainbow spot but the sun had already risen too much to create the effect. Proceeding to the amazing mountain island view also was a bust as the winds had blown the rising clouds up onto the road on their way over the ridge. What I had witnessed was a right place, right time sort of thing that likely only happens under the right weather conditions at the right time of year and time of day. I felt very special having gotten to see it.

151 drops off steeply from the Parkway and descends 1400' in a little over 3 miles. I was hot but since 151 drops into shadow on the North side of the mountain and submerges beneath the cloudy sea, I put on all the clothing I had including, two shirts, a jacket, two pairs of gloves and a wool hat before heading down. By the time I hit the bottom 15 minutes later I was shivering and had completely lost feeling in the three smallest toes on each of my feet. There's just no way to generate body heat standing stationary in the wind of a descent when your only body movement is your fingers moving to brake. Down in the valley, I hammered the pedals for several miles before warming back up but it was fun riding in high gear hauling down the road.

The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful except for the traffic of 19/23 being pretty scary. Big diesel truckers with extended side-mirrors that don't move over for bikers are pretty high on my shit list right now. I made it home in just over 3 hours and felt pretty good, rocking out the Nature Center with the family like a champion. This was a great ride. Next time I'll need a bike lock and some running shoes so I can continue on up and bag Pisgah Summit. When I get into really good shape, I'll bag the summit and continue on to Hwy 276 which makes it a 67 mile loop :o).

90 minute gym circuit

The Workout:
Continuous gym work (90 min)

Today I signed up for a month membership at the Haywood Park Hotel gym. I got started on the treadmill and worked my way around the room attempting to keep my heart rate under 155. My objective was to just keep active for the whole lunch period and get a good cardio workout. I felt good for most of the workout though at times I got pretty hot and my heartrate would climb to high 160s. All in all a great workout.

1 mile (treadmill, level ground, 8 min)
stairmaster (level 5, 12 min)
1 mile (treadmill, level ground, 8 min)
row machine (level 7, 10 min)
30 pushups
20 crunches
1 mile (treadmill, level ground, 8 min)
30 pushups
20 decline situps
stationary bike (10 min)
30 pushups
1 mile (treadmill, level ground, 8 min)
3 hs pushups
stretching (10 min)

Spivey Mtn Run

The Workout:
Run 6 miles (3 each direction)
1000' climb
1hr 5min

I was home the first half of yesterday hanging out with a daughter suspended from daycare for a day for blowing out her diaper. Bethany came home around 11:30am to take over and I opted to go out for a run. I headed back up Spivey Mountain road. I made it to the gas station in 4 minutes and stretched for anther 4. I hit the gate at the end of the road and continued on up to the radio towers. The grade is steep and I was taking BABY steps but managed to run all the way to the top ater 31 minutes total. It was 78 degrees and nary a cloud in the sky. (a.k.a. hot as balls) I didn't linger for long on the top and ran down only marginally faster than the way up to minimize impact. The whole endeavor took 65 minutes. It was very satisfying to get this one in the bag.

* Towards the end of the way back, I noticed a slight twinge on the outside of my left knee. Nothing major but I think I'll spend 1 week on the bike before running again just to be sure.

** I didn't take any water and was suprised to see that I lost 5 lbs of body water weight in a little over than an hour.