A day off during APS beamtime: Chicago

At the end of March, Hyuck and I went for beamtime at the APS in Chicago.  The beam was down on Tuesday so we went into the city for the day.  It was cold but awesome.

All the pictures are HERE.

My longest ride ever

Yesterday, Alex and I went for a 58 mi bike ride (this is the approximate map).  It was too cold, and I had a lot of neck pain, but the ride was great overall.  I think the cause of my neck pain is a combination of not being used to the new riding geometry and neck muscle weakness.

We went on three other rides last week.  They were all quite uncomfortable from my bike being poorly fitted to me.  I got it adjusted on Saturday, and the re-fitted bike is quite a different and welcome ride.  Of the 4 rides (~106 miles), I've fallen off the bike twice--not a great track record with the new pedals.  I've got some wicked bruises on both elbows, both legs (from the handlebars), and the back of my head (well a bump anyway).  They're kind of awesome!  As is the dent in my helmet (left middle--I obviously landed on a pebble, though it felt like a hammer):

And these are from the ride yesterday:

County road 73 where we turned to go to Riverhead.  This road was the fastest section of the whole ride averaging ~20mph.

Me on Sound Avenue waiting for my feet to regain feeling.

Sound Avenue, it looks completely flat.  It was not.

All of this riding will be better when I no longer have a caffeine withdrawal headache on top of everything; every time we were riding over rough road and potholes, I stood up to try to avoid jarring my head.

Alex wrote up a much more thorough version of the ride over here.

Awesome Pictures (with a side of emo whining, sorry)

So ever since they increased the tough mudder distance to 10 miles, it seems impossible.  Coupled with the fact that since I ran the 5k at the Toxicology conference (my fastest 5km ever at 28 minutes), my knee has been problematic.  It hurt quite a lot during the race then for the rest of the day.  It's been popping a lot when I walk since then.  I feel like i won't be able to run any of the Tough Mudder at all if I want to be able to walk afterwards, but I feel really bad about the idea of not participating.  So in summary: I've lost all motivation to run and I'm not feeling particularly excited about anything at the moment.  I'll stop with the depressing emo bulshit and update when I'm feeling a little more happy and healthy.

I do have some pictures though.  The DC convention center had some weird art.

Then these are the two sides of the sign I made for the Planned Parenthood Rally for Women's Health that we went to in the City (also the rally for Wisconsin solidarity earlier the same day--I was chanting to support unions).

A Week of Firsts

I did my first ride of the season on Monday.  It was just right around Stony Brook, but it was lovely.  Cold, and I fell off my bike, and my bike seat seriously needs to be adjusted, but lovely.  This was the first time I used my new clipless pedals (worst name ever as my being clipped in precipitated my falling over).  We stopped on the side of Old Field Road on the way to Old Field Light House.  My right foot was unclipped and touching the ground but my left foot was still clipped in.  I somehow overballanced to the left and the next thing I know I'm on the road.  I just barely skinned my left knee and I have an awesome bruise on my left elbow.  My arm is still sore two days later.

The bike seat is rock-like in hardness, but the main problem was that is was oriented so my weight wasn't distributed properly.  There was way to much pressure on my pubic bone--so much that even putting my hands on the drops briefly was pretty uncomfortable.

We planned to do another lunch ride today, but I'm exceedingly sore from ballet last night (we did all this weird new stuff working on turn-out).  And I'm going off caffeine starting today.  I imagine by lunch I'll have a headache.  But maybe that won't start until after.

 I also used my new cast iron skillet/griddle for the first time last night.  The results were AWESOME.

A Kind of vegan cheese steak sandwich thingy.  So awesome.


I feel like there was some other first as well, but I forget now.

Beamtime, Moving, Races, and Social Activism

It's been crazy busy recently.  I had beamtime over the weekend at the APS in Chicago.  It was very productive but tiring as usual.  I stayed up all night sunday night so I slept in then started moving my stuf yesterday.  I am hopefully moving for the last time on Long Island.  Yay!

I've registered for two races since I posted last: the Bike New York and the Montauk Century.  I'm so excited!  And when I came back to the department, Alex was pumped up about the Super Randonneur.  The ride series comes from the French randonee, to ramble.  A ride of that magnitude (200km, 300km, 400km, and 600km in a year) seems like anything but a leisurely ramble.  But we're going to at least try to do it.  If you complete the entire series in a year, you get a medal (oooohhhh) and are qualified to ride in this race in Paris that is the longest running bike race in the world (120 years).  I say race, because there's not a better word, but it's only timed in that you must complete the distance within a certain limit to officially "finish."

With all the recent attacks on women's rights by politicians, we've been itching to do something.  Something other than signing petitions that is.  And something fell into our laps--there's a rally in the city on February 26th, Stand Up for Women's Health.  I've never been to a social justice-type rally (I'm not counting the pro-life rally I attended as a child as I had not yet formed independent political opinions and I remember wanting to hang out with my 'friends' and I'm pretty sure my parents didn't want me to go).  Anyway, going to a political-type rally is even on my bucket list.  It will be the first thing I mark off since I made the list back in November!

My first 10k!!!

I speculated that the gym might be less busy on the weekends and I was right.  Yay.  I was still worried that I was going to be kicked off the treadmill about 45 minutes in, but I made it.  I did 6.2 miles in <67 minutes.  I would know the exact time, but I accidentally pulled the emergency stop cord when I was picking up my towel to wipe my face.  It was at 5.03 miles and I was so ready to just run one last mile at 6.0mph.  After I reset the machine, I was so pissed and upset I was about to cry--that lump in the thraot, hard to breathe feeling so I walked for 5 minutes fully thinking I would just stop early.  After I got myself back under control, I got like a 5th wind and boosted it back up to 5mph (and then 5.5 for the last few minutes) to finish off the 10k!  I had a stitch in my side for about the last 35 minutes, and it was kind of an emotional rollercoaster, but I'm done now.  I had a protein shake, lunch, and half of my toasted coconut chocolate chip vegan cookie, and I'm feeling loads better.

Workout unhappiness and the continuing snowpocalypse

So I think it is physically impossible for me to be able to do a pull-up by the time the Tough Mudder rolls around.  Why?  I haven't tested the absolute max, but I can do about 10 lateral pull down reps with 75lbs and 6-8 reps with 87.5 lbs.  I currently weigh about 160 lbs so even assuming my max single rep weight I can lift is 100, I'm still a solid 60 pounds from being able to lift myself.  So yeah, I don't think I'll really be able to pull myself over the wall.  Dammit.

The undergrads are back so that means the gym is super busy.  And it means that I can't stay on the treadmill for more than 30 minutes.  Soooo annoying.  I guess there's a slight upside in that it forces me to do more weight training which is a good thing for sure.

On a further annoying note, there are ginormous piles of snow everywhere and the wintery mix that keeps falling combined with the sub-freezing nighttime temperatures has made a layer of ice over all the snow.  The fields of snow now look fake, like they're made of ceramic.  It's never going to go away now.

Winter Forecast: Despair

Chance of looking out the window and sighing: 90%.  I am so over New England winters.

The only positive thing I can think of: I'm currently in the registration process for the 2011 TD Bank 5 Boro Bike Tour.  They close down the entire bike route--a traffic-free tour of NYC.  The skinny: 32,000 riders, 5 boroughs, 42 miles.  Sounds amazing!

But I'm still pissed about the damned weather.

Next Stop: Hollywood

I'm totes gonna be famous:
Campus Recreation Personal Training promo

BIKE!!!

I went to get my new bike.  IT.  IS.  AWESOME.  So awesome that I'll abuse caps lock to describe it.  But the words don't do it justice, caps lock or no.
My new Cannondale CAADX with Tiagra parts:

Alex and his 3 inch larger frame version:

The twin bikes:

Now if all the snow would go away, I could try the thing out.

Snow Day with pictures

So I woke up to a ridiculous amount of snow, and promptly got back in bed with my coffee.  The view from my coffee cup:

After finishing 2 cups, I finally went outside and shovelled snow for about 1.5 hours.  It was crazy--more so than usual because of the enormous piles of snow from the last three snowstorms.  So every shovel had to be hoisted up and over 6-8 foot walls of old snow.  After a while, I just couldn't rely solely on my arms so I was using my leg as a lever to launch the snow over the pile.  Rock hard abs, one snowstorm at a time.

 I realized when I got back in that my shirt combination turned out kind of funny, as shown here:

Why, yes, that is Gary Coleman in the v of my sweater.

I made Laura and I awesome vegan pizza and strawberry/banana/lemon smoothies for lunch.  Then I drank an entire pot of black tea while reading a cookbook.  I am still excessively caffeinated (picture me typing very quickly but very poorly due to the shakiness, and you'll have the idea).  Then I went to school and convinced Caitlin and Heidi to go to the gym with me.  The entire track team seemed to be hogging the treadmills so I ended up doing 20 minutes of elliptical, then some other leg stuff so as not to further abuse my arms and abs.  It's been a lovely day.

7 worst sandwiches in America

I saw this article on the Yahoo homepage.  It's the 7 most unhealthy sandwiches served at American chain restaurants.  It is astounding.  One of them has 98g of fat.  In a single sandwich.  Not including the fries and stuff that come along free at most restaurants.

7 worst sandwiches in America

Soreness, pull ups, and frozen pipes

I stayed with Alex & Andi last night because our pipes had frozen at our house.  They get up at an insane hour to go to the gym so I actually got to the school gym right after it opened (after stopping by my house to see if the water was back on--and it was, yay!).  I couldn't even look at the treadmills this morning.  My quadriceps are quite sore from the run yesterday.  I rowed to warm up (and did a short stretch) then did 45 minutes of core and upper body strength training before a 10 minute final stretch.  I tried out some of the exercises from my new plyometrics book.  We'll see how I feel tomorrow.  I don't feel wrecked like I do after running, but I need to be able to do pull ups/chin ups so hopefully this new regimine will be effective.  I found a website with recommendations on how to do more pull ups (over here).

It boils down to these 4 things:

1. do more pull ups (since i can't do any actual pull ups; i just hand from the pull up grips and try to bend my elbows a bit)
2. do negatives (the part of the pull up where you're letting yourself down (I hand't thought of this, I'll try it out next time)
3. do lat pull-downs, the inverse of a pull up (I did 30 of these today, I'll try to up the weight next time--I only had it on 50 lbs)
4. use an assisted pull-up machine (we don't have one of these in the gym so I'll not be doing this one)

My longest run ever

Alex did another 10k on Saturday so I finally attempted it today.  I think we're generally near the same fitness level so we trade workouts kind of.  Like he tried the inclined interval runs that I talked about in a previous post.

The max time on the treadmill is 60 minutes so I just set it for that.  I did 5 minutes @ 4.5mph to warm up, then 5 min @ 5.5 then 30 min at 6.0.  Then the last ~20 min @ 5.5 again.  About every 5-10 minutes I would walk at 4.0 mph for a minute so I could drink water and prevent a stroke.  My max heart rate is around 170 bpm (200 - age), and each time I went down to the walk speed to drink, I measured my heart rate.  It was usually at 161 bpm (though it takes ~30 seconds to register).  In 60 min, I went 5.50 miles (8.8km).  The longest run I've ever done is a 5km (3.1 miles) so I'm feeling pretty good about it despite not getting to 10km.  And I'm feeling pretty good about the >700 calorie burn.  I celebrated with a bit of the red velvet cake sitting in the community room.

I think from now on, I'll alternate between shorter inclined interval runs and long-distance runs for the running part of my training.

I could never be a marathoner.  I am just not a natural long-distance runner.

Obstacle Test: #8 The Ball Shrinker

Alex and I set up one of the Tough Mudder obstacles (#8 The Ball Shrinker) out behind the ESS building on Saturday.  It was great fun trying to fling each other off the ropes. Sunday we set it up again but this time our fellow tough mudder competitors joined us (Bill and Hyuck).  The trees are conveniently located next to a 12' concrete wall which we proceeded to go up and down in different combinations trying to figure out how to get everyone over.  It just hit home how much I need to work on my upper body strength.  They could lift me up so I could put my arms over the top, but I can't pull myself over unless I get a leg on the top.  Less than three months.

I ordered my new bike

Oh, man, the bike I ordered is just gorgeous.  I am in love with this bike.  I can't wait for it to come in.  It'll be fitted for me, and then I can finally take it home.  It's going to be blissful.

mmmm...bike porn

Training and Unintended Weight Loss

Okay so I still haven't been calorie counting and without realizing it until this morning, I lost 7.1 pounds in a week, well actually in 6 days.  That is so not a healthy rate of weight loss especially at my current weight (that's over 4% loss).  So my new plan is to have a protein shake with every meal.  And also to actually look at the numbers I type in my phone every morning after I weigh.  I'm usually still mostly asleep.

I did the interval incline runs again and it was was at the limit of my endurance, but I also hadn't eaten breakfast.  I know, I know.
Time         % Incline     mph
5 min              0             4.0
stretch
5 min              0             5.0
5 min              5             5.0
5 min              0             5.0
5 min              5             5.0
5 min              0             5.0
5 min              5             5.0
5 min              0             3.5
stretch
That last incline was killer.


I'm gonna do better.  And start working on upper body too.

Incline Intervals, again, and thoughts about protein

I tried running incline intervals again.  I can't decide if it was harder or easier than the first time.  Maybe about the same.  I didn't try to do anything at 10% this time and I did a short stretch after my warmup (go me!).  So the overall time was longer 30 minutes at 5.0 mph or higher.  I set it up as rest-incline-rest-incline-rest-rest with each segment being 5 minutes.  The incline segments were 5.0 mph at 5% incline and the rest segments were half 5.0 and half 5.5 mph.  Then I did a 5 minute cool down (4.5 - 3.5 mph).  Total of 3.38 miles in 40 minutes brunging 430 calories.  Then I went to the 30 minute Ab Attack fitness class.  It was fun but I was just so tired all day yesterday (even before the running).

Workout Summary for the day: incline interval running total of 3.38 miles in 40 minutes burning 430 calories + 25 min Ab Attack class

I started having more protein shakes yesterday.  Alex found a recommendation of 1g protein/kg of body mass which puts me at ~70 g of protein a day.  On a 3-veggie burger day I'm lucky to get 50g.  We'll see if I can keep choking down the shakes.  They are not particularly appetizing.  But the ones I have now are at least better than the Pea Protein powder I had before (I actually threw out more than half of it it was so horrifically bad tasting).  It makes me shudder just thinking about it.  Guh.

And so it begins

So Tuesday I started training specifically for the Tough Mudder.  I ran intervals on the treadmill, but instead of speed intervals I changed the incline like this:
5 min warm up at 4.5 mph
5 min at 5 mph at an incline of 5%
5 min at 5 mph with no incline
5 min at 5 mph at an incline of 5%
5 min at 5 mph with no incline
1 min at 5 mph at an incline of 10% (I was thinking of doing 2-3 minutes, but this was killer)
4 min at 5 mph with no inclin
5 min cool down at 4.5 to 3.5 mph
~10 minute stretch
 My right knee hurt quite a bit after this workout (and it also hurt doing pirouettes in ballet last night).  And after three weeks of no ballet, I've lost a lot of flexibility, but I think it will come back a lot faster the second time around.  I went to yoga last night before ballet to try to pre-stretch a bit.  The first 15 minutes was all breathing stuff, which I cannot get into in the beginning.  The positions were really difficult and awesome and the last portion of relaxation I got more into.  Then the last 2 minutes or so was this semi-religious crap.  I can't stand it.  I just tried to tune out.

Monday, I also started back to my vegan diet (though I hate calling it that).  I've already lost most of the weight I gained over the holidays, yay!  Maybe a pound more and I'll be back where I was.  I need to start keeping track of calories again because otherwise I don't think I eat enough for all the exercise I do.  My food paranoia makes me tend toward under eating when I don't keep track meticulously.  I only think it's a problem because I started seeing spots in my peripheral vision after doing a bunch of leaps at the end of ballet.  Not good.  Usually, I just get dizzy when I stand up from sitting; this was different.  I immediately got in the car and ate an apple.