Team McAlister

I did spin class for an hour today (at 6 AM, suckers!) and warmed down with a mile on the treadmill. I’m told it’s important to practice that transition if one wants to do a triathlon. It actually wasn’t too trying, but MAN I am not used to the saddle on a spin bike. Next time I may wear bike shorts, but I’m not sure about running with a chamois.

I can already tell a major improvement in my general fitness. A mile on the treadmill used to be a challenge, and now I do it to loosen up after spinning for an hour? At this rate I’ll be a pro triathlete, like, next year.

Tomorrow’s a “long” run. I’m shooting for 4 miles at a continuous jog, hopefully about 5.5 mph. After that, interval training! We’ll see how that goes.

Tags: bike, butt, hurts, run, spin

I’m now on Week 11 of Hal Higdon’s Intermediate I marathon training program.  Things are starting to get intense — this week features the most miles of any week in the program.  (The weeks with 20-mile long runs have less mileage because of shorter weekend pace runs.)  I started off the week yesterday with a short swim; I only stayed in the pool for half an hour and didn’t try to go very far, mostly because my entire body felt like a rock after Sunday’s long run.  Today I hit the ‘mill for a 5-mile recovery run (45:55), and then the weight room for some upper body work.  The rest of the week — 8 miles tomorrow, 5 on Thursday, 8 on Saturday, and 18 on Sunday.  It’s actually forecast to get above freezing tomorrow, so I’m excited about running outside and not freezing my face off.

Tags: running

In baseball circles, the catcher’s equipment has been called the “implements of ignorance.” (Apologies to Joe Garagiola, Bob Uecker, Yogi Berra, or Tim McCarver for a misquotation or misattribution.) If whoever said something like that thought they were describing the ultimate in athletic futility then they obviously had never ridden bicycle rollers. I wish I could spout off some pithy Elizabethan curse about the inventor of these things. If working a sudoku is an intellectual Sin of Onan (which it just may be), then riding rollers has to be the athletic version of old Onan’s bad habit.

Apparently, engaging in riding rollers helps one’s cycling – balance, stroke (sorry Onan), smoothness, etc. You can also kill yourself. You might not go blind, but you can sure mess yourself up.

Today the score is: Rider 1, Rollers 0. I rode those bad boys for 50 minutes and didn’t have a single wreck or close call (very unusual!).

So much for my day off….tomorrow is a 6 mile run day.

Tags: baseball, cycling, Onan, triathlon