Fitness

I got back on the rollers on the bike in the garage today. It's been a while. I've mostly been getting outside for short hard rides (under gloomy skies) up Sweat Mountain, one of the steepest hills I've ever ridden. There's a beautiful view of the Atlanta skyline from there. You'd have to zoom in and really squint at the horizon to see it in the picture. Keeping the pedals turning on that hill always gets my heart-rate up into the 190's no matter how easy I try to go.

It's hard to get back on the rollers after being outside all year, to get yourself to do something so seemingly mindless, boring, and well, grueling all in a  dark cold cluttered garage . But once I got started it went pretty well. I was listening to Jimmy Eat World and I decided to do steady state intervals, sort of a climbing repeat over 10 minutes. Heart rate starting in the 160's for the first three minutes of the interval, up to my lactose threshold for the next three (168-171), above that for the next three (172-175) and to my max (180+) for the last minute. It hurts just enough to seem worth the effort. I did two intervals and rode for a total of 40 minutes.

Afterwards I did half this workout from Bodyrock. That's 100 reps instead of 200. I'll try to do the rest this evening with Dawn. She and I have started to do these together to get ready for snowboarding in February. They're pretty fun and challenging, and I always end up saying something like "please kill me now!" at some point, because I'm a big baby when it comes to pain. Don't let Zuzana (from Bodyrock.tv) intimidate you with her sexy poses though, she's actually really sweet and very encouraging.