Only 10 More Seconds

This morning there was a chance that I was going to go swimming with Laura, which would have been great as a second chance to test out my wetsuit, but she ended up being up late doing work, so we canceled our swimming date. I had actually really wanted to go swimming because they were forecasting that the weather this morning would be rainy. And they were right.

I woke up to rain and decided that could only mean one thing - heading to the gymnasium. Again, I'm grateful that I decided to renew my gym membership! I guess I probably could have swam there this morning, but it's really better if you make a reservation, otherwise you can get stuck waiting for quite a while, so I didn't really feel like taking my chances and waiting around forever this morning. Instead, I decided to go for a quick spin.

On the computer spin bike, of course. I decided to do the "Race Day" program, Level 8. I've done the Race Day program before and I remembered that it's not just all sitting down, so I wasn't quite sure what was in store for me, but it ended up being a really good workout, I think. There were lots of seated flats (on high resistance) as well as a lot of standing climbs, so all in all, I think it was pretty representative of what my race day will be like.

Here are my stats for the ride (I'd just like to mention that these calories were WAY off, which is a little weird to me):


After the bike ride, I still had a few minutes before I had to head home, so I decided to head over to the stair mill. San Francisco's run course has a Sand Ladder, which is basically some old railroad ties covered in sand that you have to climb up. In the newsletter I was e-mailed yesterday, they recommend practicing climbing stairs, so I figured what the heck and climbed some stairs.

I did the Fat Burner program on the stair mill for 15 minutes on Level 12. The nicest thing about this was that each segment was only 10 seconds long. I mostly spent that 15 minutes staring at the monitor on the machine thinking "only 10 more seconds" over and over again. I haven't done the stair mill in quite a while and I forgot how sweaty it is!

I checked the results from the Sand Ladder from 2008 and it looks like most people complete it somewhere between 2 and 3 minutes, so it seems like 15 minutes of constant stair climbing was good practice! I'll definitely have to do it again as I really noticed that my calves were a little bit sore while climbing.

Biking
Time: 55:06
Distance: 17.10 miles
Pace: 18.62 MPH
Calories: 468
Maximum HR: 157
Average HR: 142

Stair Mill
Time: 15:27
Distance: 1.70 miles
Pace: 9:05/mile
Calories: 143
Maximum HR: 163
Average HR: 153