Max HR 169, 925 calories burned.  I’m hopeful that will put me across the 30 pounds of weight-loss threshold tomorrow morning!

Max HR was only about 160, for some reason.  Calories burned 750.

No.

I rested my sore muscles on Monday.  My legs were still quite fatigued from Saturday’s workout and Sunday’s ride. No bon-bons were injured.

Tuesday, I did an abbreviated HIT session (6B).  I was shocked to see that I was “done” with the Individual Leg Training drills already.  Just when you start getting really good at them, they disappear from the workout.  Curse you, Arnie Baker! (just kidding, Dr. Baker.  We’re cool.  I’m just tryin’ to be funny).  I had some time (and fatigue) constraints, so I bailed on the session after the 30 minutes of standing/surges.  I have a feeling that the rest of the program may have to adapt a bit, as I try to squeeze in more outdoor miles.  We’ll see how it goes.

Wednesday is the new bat-time, bat-channel for my weekly workout with Luka at Hocevar Performance Gym in Renton.  Training partner Lee needs her Saturday mornings free for Bugs Bunny cartoons (swim meets and triathlons… I’ll do the Bugs Bunny watchin’ around here!).  I think this will free up my weekends for some riding and home-stuff that has been suffering lately.  But I digress…

So, the workout starts at 8:30 p.m., an hour when I’m usually contemplating putting on my Elmer Fudd P.J.’s and curling up with a good book, or watching Alton Brown smoke a salmon with a cardboard box, hotplate, and pencil shavings.  I ate dinner around 6:45 (this will be earlier next week… no, I didn’t hurl, but it was kinda touch and go there for a minute), and headed to Renton around 8.  I decided to wear my Heart Rate Monitor so you could see the carnage (click to zoom).

Warm-ups, then a kettlebell complex (double swings, rows, squats, presses, reverse lunges, ouch), then jumping and wind-sprints.  I decided to “race” Lee on the second set of sprints, which is the point where I hit the 170 on the HRM, and almost tossed the stir-fry.  We finished in a push-up/plank position facing each other, and alternately slapping hands (R to R, L to L) while stabilizing our core.  Deceptively hard.

Came home, showered, watched the weather on the tube, and I was asleep by 10:30.  Slept like a rock, too.

Update: just noticed this bruising this morning:

Failure of my kettlebell clean technique, probably as I was getting more and more fatigued during the kettlebell complex. The bruising isn’t too deep, so I should be good-to-go in a day or so.

Max HR 169, 700 calories.

I thought about doing some kind of clever April Fool’s post, but I was way too busy today to be clever and take a picture of my hand poised over a tub of Ben & Jerry’s or something.  So nevermind.

I started an online class tonight through Villanova, work related.  Balancing school, work, family, cycling, and life should be interesting for the next 6 months.

Max HR 170, 780 calories.

The last big bulge in the curve is the standing portion. A few details:

• The big dip about 10 minutes before the end of that segment, the iPod ended it’s playlist.  There was no way I was going to do surges in silence. Note to self: longer playlists, dude.
• The jaggedy cadence curve at the end shows the surges, 15 seconds out of every minute for the last 7.
• The death plunge at the end of the curve is me getting off the bike, because the spasms in my gastrocnemius were beyond control.  I had to stretch them, then roll them out on the big foam roller.  Ouch.

Max HR 169, 800 calories incinerated.

Max HR 166, 1,030 calories over 1hr 46 minutes.

Tonight was HIT session 4A, 90 minutes of sweaty goodness:

The HRM says my maximum rate was 206, but I’ve never been past 181 or so.  Must have been the influence of a solar flare or something.  I think I got up around 172.  Calorie count shows 1,000, but that is probably wonky as well.  Let’s call it 850, shall we?

The weird thing is that for the second session in a row, I’ve had a very strong muscle cramp form in at least one calf.  It happens after the standing portion of the workout (which for the past two sessions is 25 minutes).  As I start the spin-out (5 minutes at 105 rpm), the inside of my calf (most especially the right) begins to visibly form a knot which forces me to stop pedaling and stand to stretch out the gastrocnemius.  I’ve heard pickle juice (yes, pickle juice) is a good preventative for this, so I sucked on a Pickle Pop during the ILT portion.  Didn’t help.  I may have to work bananas back in the diet on spin days, I guess.

Polar HRM plot of HIT session 3B

Max heart rate tonight was 171, calories burned 1,120.  I did hold the high-rev spinning down from the “recommended” speeds.  I hit a top rpm of 144, but that was a fleeting moment, so to speak.  The high-rpm sections continue to be the “hardest” exercise for me.  As to the other fun activities in these sessions:

• Standing (tonight was 25 minutes) is far easier this year than last which I assume is a function of a.) less ballast, b.) heavy duty core training, and c.) leg strength training.
• Individual Leg Training may be a little easier for me this year, but not by much.  You pedal in 3 minute intervals with each leg on it’s own, 3 or 6 sets in a night.  The sections where I pedal at 50 to 60 rpm are cake.  The sections where you are supposed to put it in the easiest gear and pedal at 80 rpm are ludicrous speed.  I’m lucky to stay between 60 and 70.
• Spin-out at the end: The workout has you spin out for 5 minutes or so at a moderately high cadence (tonight it was 105).  I despised these last year, partly because I was so gassed, and partly because somebody would generally put Neil Diamond on the stereo… who can spin at 100 + rpm for five minutes to “Cracklin’ Rosie” for crying out loud?  Tonight I put on Billy Cobham’s Waveform, and had to show restraint to keep it down at the end.