Marc's Public Blog - Exercising

Biking around to Los Gatos, Cupertino, and Rancho San Antonio

2011-06-19T15:00:00Z

Jennifer and I went biking to Sweet Peas Creperie in Los Gatos to have some Crepes :) On the way back, we went through Los Gatos Creek Trail, which was overrun by ducks :)

On the way back we stopped by the Park in Sunnyvale, and I was amused by the Pony ride:

The next day, we biked to Deer Hollow Farm, and I snapped this:

Nothing earth shattering, just a few random pictures :) See more images for Biking around to Los Gatos, Cupertino, and Rancho San Antonio

Bike To Work Day

2011-05-12T15:00:00Z

Although the weather has been unseasonably cool (never mind a good rain mid-May, which is more than rare here), I got my ass in gear (ha!) for bike to work day.
While I wasn't in great biking shape, and wasn't pushing that hard, I did the 8 miles (13km) in 29mn, which wasn't bad.

Google had a nice reception and swag for riders:

The ride home (uphill, and just after 1h of bootcamp where my legs were already tired), was more painful and took 38mn.

Body Fat Results

2010-07-07T15:00:00Z

Since I've lost some weight after my surgery, I figured I'd take a few readings.

Weight: 152lbs, body fat: 14% on my scale, 13.2% on the handheld (pinch testing said 16% but I'm confident the guy did it wrong).

Bike Ride around Baylands, Palo Alto Airport, and the Duck Pond

2010-04-18T15:00:00Z

It had been a while since we went biking in that direction, so the beautiful sunday was a good excuse to go with out road bikes and go around the baylands.

There were lots of birds building nests.

I should I brought score cards to rate the takeoffs :)

See more images for Bike Ride around Baylands, Palo Alto Airport, and the Duck Pond

My Knee

2009-12-05T16:00:00Z

I ran a mere 4.8 miles today to go with Jennifer, and after getting home, the left of my left knee has been quite painful.

This is getting irritating, I pretty much can't jog more than a 5k without ruining one or two knees, it seems :(

Turkey 5K

2009-11-19T16:00:00Z

We had a 5K run today. I was on the fence as to whether I should have done it since I haven't been running a lot recently, especially after having been sick, but my coworker went and that was enough incentive for me to go too so that I could hopefully stay ahead of him.

In the end, I did meet that goal, but my 5K time was about 24mn, which is bad compared to peak times of 22:18, but it's at least under the 25mn benchmark.

Recent Biking

2009-05-03T15:00:00Z

After messing up my left hand pretty badly while biking almost 2 months ago, it's been slowly recovering, but it's still not back to normal. I'm still in pain when opening a door handle that needs to be grabbed tight and twisted but the rest is mostly ok now.
Since I was able to do regular road biking two weeks ago, I tried mountain biking this time, and we went to Fremont Older for our usual loop, and some little wine tasting and shopping on the side for Jennifer :) (oh, and pony molesting too :) ) Biking was mostly ok, I just wasn't too comfortable going downhill on a steep gravel path where I had to squeeze the brakes very hand (my left hand wasn't super happy with that part), but otherwise the ride went fine and we got home almost dry (rain fell down a bit later).

weather did look menacing

5k run

2009-04-23T15:00:00Z

Over the last months I did take a little bit of weight, first due to not really being able to run much since about 8 months ago when I injured my knees, and then recently my bike/hand injury.
Today was the first time I got to run a 5k at boot camp. I did it in just under 25mn, which is far from my 22mn record, but eh, at least it was barely under 25mn :)
Hopefully I'll be able to build this back up soon.

Bike Ride to Duck Pond by Palo Alto Airport

2009-04-19T15:00:00Z

Despite the very unseasonable heat, even by leaving after 16:30, we went out for a bike ride to Palo Alto airport and its nearby duck pond where people were happy to ignore the multiple "do not feed the ducks" signs. Sigh...

Good news is that while my left hand still hasn't fully recovered (it still hurts to open a door knob with it), it good enough for most tasks, including biking on normal roads (not sure about mountain biking yet).

See more images for Bike Ride to Duck Pond by Palo Alto Airport

Flew Over Bike Handlebar

2009-03-13T15:00:00Z

Went out to bike to work for the first time today.
3rd light was red but because the opposite left turn arrow was green, I thought it was about to turn green so I went on. At the light I realized that the cycle had changed and the intersection was actually turning green. I braked hard, stopped by the red light, but my front brake was too strong and my center of gravity was too high, so my front wheel locked up, I flew over the handlebars, and landed on my face.

3H later at the ER I had 5 stitches on my chin, a very bruised left hand, but nothing broken (mostly typing with just one hand right now, hopefully my left hand will feel better soon). (after calling home to have Jennifer pick me up and the bike, I drove myslef to the ER with the one good hand).

my left hand is still quite swollen and sprained

My GPS watch is toast

All in all, it could have been much worse. I got a good reminder of the meaning of kinetic energy, and especially center of gravity. I'll also see if I can retune my brake bias. Oh yeah, I may want to be less optimistic about my ability to time lights so that I don't have to stop and start as much.

BTW, for those who believe in that, it was Friday 13th :)

Knee Injury

2008-09-26T15:00:00Z

About 3 months ago, just before my work leave, I ran to work for the second time (took about 1h for 7.3 miles). This turned out not to be a great idea because that was the last time I was able to run, or significantly bike until this week, 3 months later.
I turned out to injure both my knees because they were somewhat wobbling left and right while I was running due to a muscle imbalance, and my being low on cartilage around that area to start with, caused a double injury on my tissues around my knee cap.

The obvious first thing I had to do was to stop any kind of running, and go very easy on biking or any other exercising that could stress my knees so as to allow for the tissues to heal. Then, I've been doing physical therapy which has mostly been training my side muscles so as to offload the knee itself by having the muscles carry the shockwave around the kneecap while keeping it centered.
At least, that's the idea :)

Time will tell how things work out. I started going to boot camp again (which means some running) and biking as well.

action marc: improving running time to work

2008-06-06T02:11:00Z

While I won't be doing this every day, I ran to work today.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the magic time under 1h, it was only 1:02:22 for 7.29m (11.7km).
At least, I maintained a 8:33mn/mile for the whole distance, which is respectable I guess. (average heart rate 156bpm).
At least my average speed for each subsequent mile didn't vary too much along the run: 8mn10, 8m08, 8mn12, 8mn49, 8mn59, 8mn37, 8mn58, 8mn21. I guess you can see that I'm used to running 3 miles, not 7 :)
Still, let's see if I can get this down under 1h next time :)

Biking to work

2008-06-03T02:14:00Z

I've been biking to work on and off as time and wheather permits (and when I don't have to bring back a huge box of toys Patrick shipped to my work address :) )
Because google is about at sea level and our house at 280ft altitude (80m), biking to work with the extra weight I carry on me (typically around 20kg/42lbs) is a lot easier and faster on the way down than the way back (even if I typically have a pretty strong headwind when biking to work, it somehow doesn't push my fat ass back up the hill on the way home :) ).

I think this morning I scored my best time to work so far:
12km/7.56miles in 27mn12s, or 27km/h / 16.7mph average with an average heartrate of 140bpm and a max speed of 35kph/22mph

Times home haven't been as stellar so far, all over 30mn, but I'll see what I can do tonight if boot camp doesn't entirely kill me :)
Just got home: 30mn34s. I suppose I can get that under 30mn if I don't come out of 1h of bootcamp where I already ran 3 miles plus sprinted, lunged, and some other fun stuff, but I'm not sure I'll get much below 30mn with the weight of my backpack.

Then again, the goal is not to get home 1mn earlier, but to burn calories, so I guess it's ok :)

Up Montebello to Skyline and Ridge Winery

2008-06-01T11:46:00Z

Jennifer and I went biking up Montebello Road from home, via Stevens Creek Reservoir. It was a reasonable 2800ft climb which took me about 1H to ascend (I'll have to time it more carefully next time).
Although it was a sunny day, the top was foggy, windy and cold, which wasn't that pleasant on my sweat (it actually got quite cold and sucky on the fast ride down due to the relative wind. I should have taken a jersey/light jacket).
At least, it was cool: it was my first time not only biking up that high, up to Skyline, and from home no less :)

At the top, I looked at what the options are so that I can come back, and do a longer ride with Xav up to skyline and down to Stevens Canyon or Pagemill.

On the way down, Jennifer and I stopped at the Ridge Winery for some tasting (well, tasting was mostly for her :) )

A few more picts

Bike Ride around the house towards Skyline and Fremont Older Space Reserve

2008-05-04T01:52:00Z

Since we now live pretty close to the skyline mountains, we went to bike to the Stevens Creek Reservoir, which happens to be the source of the water that flows down in our backyard.
From there, we first went up Montebello to 1500ft or so, and around a private road, through some wineries, and road called peacock drive with actual peakcocks on it, and then we went back down around Stevens Canyon, Mt Eden Rd, through a winery, and through Fremont Older back home (Fremont Older was somewhat challenging without a map, it had trails that split in all directions. Thankfully my GPS and trails I premapped was good enough to get us home as the sun was setting.

The Stevens Canyon Reservoir is only 15mn biking distance

we went to visit a winery on the way up Montebello

We biked 1000ft up Montebello (which was only half way), and it made for some nice views

One of many wineries we biked by

Ok, it was a bit too much uphill for Jennifer's taste :)

And we headed home through Fremont Older Space Reserve

The other pictures from Fremont Older and the Stevens Canyon Reservoir

Beat my lap time again, against expectations

2008-01-15T12:52:00Z

I'm not too sure how that happened, while I still felt remnants of my cold, boot camp was "long run" today, so I ran a couple of times around the google block, as usual. I started a bit late since I went back to my car to get my heard rate monitor and GPS.
Maybe it's because of that and my trying to catch up with someone who left a good 4mn before me, that I had the drive to run a bit faster.
The stats were:

total:3.2 miles, 22:54, 7:11mn/mile, heart rate: 174bpm
1st mile: 6:59, 167bpm
2nd mile: 7:32, 169bpm (getting a bit tire)
3rd mile: 7:06, 180bpm (pushing like crazy to catch up with, and pass my foe)
3 miles:  21:37
3.1m (5k):22:18
3.2miles: 22:54 (full two laps of the block, by then I was at 186bpm)

By the end, I was absolutely tired, my throat was dead from the cold and laboured breathing, but I had made it :)

Another exploratory bay bike ride?

2007-10-15T13:24:00Z

Jennifer and I went to explore another piece of the bay trail between Sunnyvale and Moffett. As we went past the Sunnyvale SMART recycling station, the trail became iffy. Basically, it split in to multiple options, and became a real maze.
Then again, even getting there was "interesting", due to the water level behind high, and riding the water trail under hwy 237 was quite dicy: muddy, sideways, and we were afraid of sliding down in the water :)
The problem was that more than half those paths were dead ends. Some you could get out of by crossing mud or taking questionable paths, others, outside of swimming for a few metres, there was no way out, and you had to backtrack all the way.
First, we took a path that got us smack against the gate and restricted area from Lockheed, and when we went away from it, our "reward" was being on the wrong side of a "restricted area" fence, that we managed to go around.
After finishing a loop around the salt pond, I opted to take what looked like a more official trail back, and we ended up on the wrong side of the fence below. By that time, I was fairly pissed off: we had ridden a fair amount and just wanted to go home. We already had been tricked on a road that didn't connect and teased you by being almost there, but on the wrong side of a small channel of water. After crossing at a dubious point, pretty far away, we headed back and got stopped by that gate.
The stupid thing was that the gate was supposed to stop people from getting to where we were, and we were just trying to get out. What a moronic design! It wasn't hard to get where we were without crossing any gates, and that gate was so tight that it looked like it was meant to stop cars, bikes, and even people.
At this point, I was annoyed enough that I decided that we were going to scale that gate as I really didn't feel like turning back. While it's not obvious from the picture, I was able to lift the bikes above the gate, which was no easy feat, then managed to separate them enough to climb between them on top of the lock and without being stuck by the barbed wire. Jennifer managed to sneak between the gate and the ground.

An FAA radar used for the south bay

Jennifer was smiling after having crossed the gates, but not during

Summary: whoever designed those gates and roads that don't connect and then fence you in, should be shot :)
Anyway, the rest of the few picture are here

Biking from San Francisco's Pier 39, through the Golden Gate Bridge, to Saulsalito

2007-10-01T14:26:00Z

Since we were already in San Francisco Saturday, we slept over in a hotel there, picked up my burning man bikes and our stuff that had been trucked back from burning man, and used the bikes to ride from Pier 39 to the Golden Gate Bridge. Once on the other side, we did a nice climb to see the bridge from up high (> 1000ft), before going back down towards Saulsalito.

Saulsalito was a nice old city to see for a couple of hours while we were waiting for the ferry from Saulsalito back to Pier 39, to finish with a nice dinner on Fisherman's Warf with view on the water during the sunset.

Here's a link to the GPS track of our biking and a link to all the pictures of our little trip

A new 3m/5k/3.2m record

2007-09-26T10:15:00Z

After getting back into boot camp a bit, I took some diet rockstar energy drink, and went running for a couple of laps around the building (3.2 miles).
I don't know if it was the caffeine or just my shape, but I was able to beat 4 of my personal records today: sub 7mn mile for two miles in a row (6:55mn and 6:59mn)

3.0miles: 21:13
5k (3.1m): 21:57
3.2miles: 22:45
avg speed: 7:05mn/mile

I did run out of steam around the 3rd mile though, and I wanted to stop and walk the end more times than I ever wanted before, but still managed to shame myself into finishing. I guess it was worth it :)

Marina Run to Golden Gate & Golden Gate Park Rollerblading

2007-06-20T12:12:00Z

After visiting San Francisco, I met Jennifer after her conference and we went for a run of 8.2 miles through the Marina, the Golden Gate, and back to the hotel, in a pretty strong wind.
It turned out to be the longest distance that Jennifer had run so far, and she did great. While we only averaged speeds of 10mn/mile, or a total of about 1h20, we made it from end to end, which is what matters.

The few remainting pictures are here

The next morning, I went rollerblading the Golden Gate Park. Unfortunately, it's not a very good layout, nothing close to a loop, but there are nice things to visit (except for the fact that half of them prohibit rollerblades :( ), and it's reasonably rollerbladable (some pieces have so-so pavement and require riding on the street). I ended up with the path below, totalling 11 miles.

I took a fair amount of pictures of the Golden Gate Park

Northern Baylands / Steven's Creek Trail / PAO ride

2007-06-18T03:54:00Z

Jennifer and I did another ride around the Baylands, but this time northwest bound, close to our rollerblading trail, but using nearby trails that were mountain bike only.
It was a good time in the season to see all the little birdies, and we finished the ride by taking the trail around the PAO airport.

And here are the other pictures of the bike ride

Little ride around the San Francisco Marina

2007-06-11T08:03:00Z

Jennifer and Anna were going to the CA winemakers thank you luncheon (which ended up being fairly poor food and free wines to taste), and since we'd be up there, we took the opportunity to go rollerblading first.
We ended up rollerblading with the SF Marina all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge and back. It was a nice little ride (6 miles)

More picts here

action-marc: Best run times

2007-06-06T11:22:00Z

I ran around the google block twice before boot camp today, and set my best times yet:
3m: 21:45
5k: 22:28
3.2m: 23:00 (that's exactly twice around the block)
avg speed: 7.13mn/mile for 3mile (I can likely do 6:30mn for just a mile, but never tried since I usually run longer than just a mile)
heart rate: 170bpm avg

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with those numbers for a change :)

Biking the John Christian GreenBelt, Alviso 9 mile bay loop, and San Tomas Aquino Saratoga Creek Trail

2007-05-20T14:58:00Z

Jennifer and I went for a local bike ride to check out a Sunnyvale John Christian Greenbelt bike path I didn't know about (suggested by my coworker Eric).

Thanks to the Satellite map, you can actually see the trail

Once we connected it up to the bay, we rode to Alviso (North San Jose) and did a 9 mile loop there. I had more or less seen Alviso a bit before but hadn't stopped there and paid enough attention on what was there, nor did I really find the long trail that was there before I had a GPS and a picture of where the trail was supposed to start.
Turns out Alviso is actually a quite interesting place as it was meant to be a major port of entry for the South Bay about 100 years ago (it's the furthest point south that boats can reach when they've come from the bay or the ocean), and it had connection with a railroad that's still there. They even came up with the name 'New Chicago' for it, but in the end things didn't quite work out. There were also some leftovers from the gold rush.
While the area has a yacht club as it's the closest place to have a boat at if you're in San Jose, the rest of the area looks pretty run down. Odds are that it'll get cleaned up and improved in the next years, maybe ten, maybe more, but people are going to be building nice houses there sooner or later I think.

In the end, it made for a nice 24 mile ride, with wicked wind around the Alviso bay trail
You can get the rest of the pictures of the Alviso Bay Trail, and the Green Belt as well as a collection of biking maps I photographed .
You can also get the Garmin GPS GDB track of the Alviso Bay Trail, Green Belt, and the San Tomas Aquino Saratoga Creek Trail

Montebello Biking...

2007-04-29T07:13:00Z

It had been a while since I went mountain biking, snow, travelling, and all, so as Xav had recently gotten a new mountain bike, we went to Montebello.
Due to my fault, we started around 10:45, and it was a bit warm by then already. I'm not sure if it was the only reason, but we all sucked getting up Grizzly Flat (26:xxmn for me, and more for them). I guess that even if I'm generally in shape, I need to get more practise climbing that thing again (back to my sub 24mn times).
Either way, it was nice to go again and see how we were doing on it, and at least I didn't suck as much as the previous time I went a few months ago.

5k run at google

2007-03-08T15:14:00Z

Today was one of the occasional google 5k runs. It was probably my worst time yet, 25:22 for 3.12 miles, or just over 5k (although it did include running uphill). Well, at least it gives me an easy benchmark to beat :)

Hadn't gone mountain biking in a while

2007-02-20T12:03:00Z

Jen and I went to the usual montebello loop. While the drive up and down Pagemill was fun, the bike loop was tough for me, I ended up with a bad sidepain almost as soon as I tried to bike up Grizzly Flat, and did my worst time ever: over 32mn vs my usual less than 25mn.

In the process, Jen kicked my ass on the way up :)
In a nutshell, it was my worst day of biking ever, quite humbling :)
... just like the class on how to cross a small river without getting wet :)

Baylands Biking

2006-08-05T15:58:00Z

It had been a while since we had biked around the Baylands, so we went back. One moment was funny because of the birds that circled around us because of their kid that was still on the ground, closeby, and unable to fly
(a few other pix here )

San Francisco Midnight Rollers

2006-08-05T13:27:00Z

As a surprise, Jen took me for crêpes in San Francisco, and we went to the weekly SF midnight rollers ride, which was indeed a nice ride around San Francisco. The ride was 17 km for 1H40 of actual rollerblading (and good breaks in the middle, giving a ride from 21:30 to midnight)

The rest of the pictures are here

Body Fat calculation

2006-07-30T02:46:00Z

Current Music: AvB - ASOT - 258
Current Mood: Good

I was curious to see what my body fat was now, and how it would be after I put on some weight back (muscle vs fat :) ).
Out of curiosity, I measured it 3 different way: my home scale said 14% (current through the feet and legs), the one at work in the gym that uses the same principle though the hands said 13.5%, and a usually better one where your skin is measured in 7 places, said 12.5%.
That's not bad. Now we'll see how that evolves :)

Lost Gatos Creek Trail

2006-06-19T10:44:00Z

Current Music: AvB - Asot 253
Current Mood: Fair

I had been a while since I (well, we too :) ) had gone rollerblading to Los Gatos Creek Trail, which is a shame considering the yummy French bakery that is at the end :)
This reckon mission was to plot the route and set a GPS waypoint on the target, as well as evaluate the calories necessaries to make it there vs how urgent your pastry intake need is :)
Time was about 1H one way, and 47mn the other way (more leisurely on the way there, and a bit uphill)

As usual, the GPS track is here, and you can also look at the pictures taken along Los Gatos Creek Trail

Google 5K

2006-03-10T14:34:00Z

Actually, thanks to my GPS, I knew it was only 3.04 miles, which is a bit short of 5K.
Turns out, I actually didn't do well: 24mn, with an average 7:54 minute mile. I even got passed by 3 ladies! (and no, they weren't from Kenya :) )
I'm not that surprised though, we haven't done a lot of running in boot camp recently compared to the 4 boot camps I had a week, and the 4 laps minimum we'd do every day.
Anyway, I need to bring that down to 22mn so that I can be a little less shameful next time, and keep the women behind me :)
The only positive point was playing with my GPS watch, and graphing the results afterwards :)

Bought 2 GPSes

2006-03-09T14:28:00Z

While I was sick, I used some of the time to learn to use the two GPS I had just bought.
The first one was a hand held GPS, primarily designed for hiking, but which can also be used for biking and other outdoor activities (moving color maps, with altimeter and electronic compass as a backup for GPS data).
The nice thing is that it also supports auto routing, provided you can buy the expensive maps, or get them somehow. It kind of bothered me to pay for those things again since I had already paid for a set for my car.
In the end, I was able to get some older maps to test the functionality, and see if I would really want it on a day to day basis with up to date maps. So far, it looks like even if it wouldn't be your best bet for a car GPS, compared to what's on the market, but it could act as one if you had nothing else (so it's kind of nice as a multi-purpose tool).
While it's nice on the road, or to mark a jump spot in the middle of a snowed in forest so that you can head back to it next time down, it's also nice to graph your course after the fact on a big map on your computer (or even import to Google Earth for some even nicer output)

The other is a Garmin Forerunner 301. It's basically a running/sports GPS with built in heart rate monitor. It's nice for a few reasons:

you can graph whatever course you ran after the fact (nice when you're off track)
no more do you need to ask "how far did I run/bike anyway"?
what was my running pace over point X, and overall?
how am I doing on this lap compared to last one?
how are my running pace and heart rate affected by my running up or down this path (although GPS derived altitude can be off by 10-50 feet easily)

While it does look like an ugly wart, and its GPS reception isn't stellar, nor is its pairing with its heart rate monitor, it's still quite nice. I am however planning on getting the nicer forerunner 305 when it comes out

I however need to state that Mapsource and in general Garmin windows software is totally pathetic. If you do anything it doesn't like, it will crash and never restart until you remove all the software and all the maps, and reinstall them all, which could take about an hour.
Also, it will install some maps on disk, some it will refuse to do so and keep asking for the CD (you need to hack that, but if you mess up, you reinstall everything), and if it gets any read error, it removes the map tile from what's available forever, and there again you need to reinstall everything.
Way to go Garmin!
This gave me a good opportunity to setup vmware (making all that windows crap work under linux) and snapshots so that I can make copies of all of windows and garmin software while it works, and revert to a working snapshot when it blows up instead of reinstalling everything.

Anyway, when all this crap works, you get nice stuff like this graph from my running at the google 5K today, showing heart rate and speed over time

or this for kirkwood:

Central Park - Half Marathon

2004-09-30T11:39:00Z

Current Music: Awesome Trance Mix a guy gave me on a CD while waiting in line at a club
Current Mood: Worked out physically and mentally, but ok

So, I was curious to know how long the Central Park loop really was as I wasn't quite satisfied with the "about 6 miles answer" when doing mile/mn calculations. I found out that it's actually 6.3 miles, which significantly improved my last times (7:48 and 7:28mn/mile).
Those weren't too hard for me though, my body is geared for sub-hour intense and potentially sustained efforts, but not for anything much past that.
Now, the real challenge for me was doing two laps, which turns out to be really close to a half marathon (just a tiny bit short of the distance). Since Central Park had somehow somewhat motivated me to run (not sure why because I really wouldn't go running by myself otherwise), I made it fit into my schedule to go today around 17:30.
The first lap was not a bit deal. I was somewhat slower than my last two previous times since I was trying to keep a little energy for the second time around (hence 50mn18s or a 7:59s mile) and my second lap started ok until I reached about the 8th or 9th mile, and then my legs started showing signs of fatigue and it became increasingly harder to continue. The pain and general fatigue in my left calf and my right quad significantly slowed me down, to the point that instead of passing people throughout my lap, people started passing me left and right on the last 4th of my run (i.e. 2nd half of 2nd lap). I think the fact that was not going to come back to attempt this again anytime soon (if ever) was probably the only thing that made me finish the 2nd lap, but my end time was pretty poor: 8mn45/mile. It's kind of vexing to lose your muscle capacity when your body/heart/breathing still has a lot of stamina left, but such is life I guess.
However, since I got a better time on the first lap, I'm still ending up with a 8mn22/mile average for 12.6 miles, which considering that I'm not a runner/jogger is decent I guess (eh, I'm happy because I "beat" one of my coworkers' time on his half marathon, and he trained 6 months, while I had never run that distance before :)
But this all confirms that I would never last a marathon without serious training, and that even with good music in my mp3 player, jogging is incredibly boring for me, and I wouldn't stand doing that on a regular basis, not even counting the fact that you're not supposed to do anything silly like increasing your training distance by 6 mile chunks :)
(so it would probably take excruciatingly long for me to train to get there, and I just don't have the interest, sorry :)
The good news is that while my legs felt a little bit tired while I was climbing stairs double time in the subway, they didn't actually hurt, nor did I feel any serious lactic acid.

Jog in Central Park - Take 2 (updated)

2004-09-28T11:21:00Z

So, my legs were hurting a bit after my jog on friday, not having exercised for 10 days, and well, not really being a jogger :) and this might also have something to do with rollerblading all weekend while visiting manhattan, and doing a fairly good step class on sunday morning.
Anyway, by Monday, my legs well still a bit sore, but since Tuesday was going to have rain all day, I figured I'd give Central Park another try since I knew I could definitely get under the 8mn/mile mark.
Sure enough, this time I did the lap in 47mn08 (2mn01s faster), and brought the mile down to 7mn29s, which is already a bit better and brings me at the last level: level 22 from this page (whatever that really means anyway)).
The good news is that I actually felt ok after the run (ok, I did take two advils, which did go a long way to helping not hurting my knee). I almost felt good enough to go to the step class I had planned to attend at 19:30, but since my legs did feel a little sore in the subway stairs, and since there was a play I had been considering seeing, in a moment of clarity (or stupidity), I went to see the play instead of going to step (where I'm sure I would have done fine as my legs are feeling dandy as I write this).
The play was smack on time square, which was kind of fun, but it was a murder mystery, and required thought and remembering character names and so forth. Needless to say that with that I worked sunday night and today, half of it went way over my head. Oh well, I'll take step next time :)
Anyway, I now know that it'll be much harder for me to take another 2mn off the time I did today (i.e. I'd be happy if I shave another 30s next time), so since I'll probably only get one last time at a run in Central Park before I go home, I'm going to try two laps next time, or 12.6 miles, which will put it close to a half marathon. I know I can run that distance, but I have no idea how fast... I guess as long as I can keep it below 8mn30s/mile, it would be decent.
(I have however no idea whether I could run a real marathon without real training. My guess would be that I'd struggle a lot and risk blowing a knee or something. As for training, mmmh, I don't think I'd ever have the patience :)

Jog in Central Park (updated)

2004-09-25T11:19:00Z

Well, I haven't had much time to go exercising in the last week (had to work in the morning as soon as I got up, and had plans most nights), but today was a good day to do something about it after work was over, so I headed for Central Park for a jog. I was kind of curious how long it was and how long it'd take me to jog around it.
End result: 6.3 miles (I first thought it was 6.0), 49mn07, or 7mn48s mile average. Not stelar, but considering it was far from flat, and I'm not really a good jogger anyway, I guess that's good enough (I passed a bunch of people, and 6 passed me, 2 going a bit too quickly to last the 6 miles IMO, but who knows...)
While looking for how long the loop was, I found this page on running . According to the end of it, I'm already past level 21 out of 22. Woohoo, I just skipped more than 6 months of training :)
I was planning on doing a second lap, but I made the mistake not to take an advil beforehand, so my knees were starting to warm up and a second lap didn't sound like a great idea anymore. Instead, I walked back to the office down broadway. It was a nice walk and good to see 20 blocks of broadway at night. I even managed to catch critical mass (a bunch of bikers riding across manhattan once a month), followed by lots of cops on motorbikes and vans :) (ok, it was fun, but it doesn't beat critical tits at burning man :)
Eh, I even got lucky for a change, I was using my nice jersey since it had pockets in the back, one with a zipper, and put my cell phone and camera in there. That wasn't the brightest thing I did as they got covered with sweat pretty quickly. Luckily neither my cell phone or camera got damaged by the exposure....

Comments:
Ah, but the trick is to see whether you can repeat that performance three or four more times this week. ;-) That's when the training kicks in. :-) Lucky you getting to go running in Central Park. Grrr.

btw -- ziplock baggies are what you're after to protect your phone, money and such.
posted by goaliegirl : 26 September, 2004 12:23

I am planning on going again, but I did step instead this morning. I did feel it though, my legs just aren't used to jogging.
My plan wasn't just to do it again though, but to do better next time :) (i.e. 8mn/mile or under and/or two laps, or about 20km). We'll see if I actually manage that or not (and also find the time, but that's a different issue)
As for ziplocks, yes, I figured that out, and I'm taking some next time :)
posted by MM : 26 September, 2004 15:04

8 min/mi is quite respectable. :-) Weird that the page you cite has 7.5min/mi as the top speed. But I guess it's for total beginner runners.
posted by goaliegirl : 27 September, 2004 19:25

Turns out that I actually did right under 7:30/mile now that I've adjusted the real distance to 6.3miles, so the end numbers are actually a bit better :)
posted by MM : 29 September, 2004 21:11

Biking Jersey, shorts, and socks

2004-08-03T00:12:00Z

Current Music: Rank1 - Awakening
Current Mood: Good

I finally got my butt out yesterday to try my new biking gear (thank you again, you :). By the time I got to the top of skyline, it was covered with deep fog and clouds that were low enough to be all over my trails.
With the wind on top of that, it felt quite chilly. That said, I had some biking clothes to put to the test, so I didn't put my backup jacket, and just went out with the jersey and shorts.
Basically, I only got cold on my arms, which weren't covered by the jersey. Amazingly, my body didn't get cold, even though the jersey is quite light (it's very well designed, the vents are in the back so that the wind from forward movement doesn't enter through them)
The shorts were also quite comfortable (more than my regular biking shorts), and even the socks were of an interesting design (for one, it didn't hurt to walk on them in my kitchen due to the padding, where all the other socks I have do not provide enough protection).
The ride went fine. I made it up grizzly flat in 23mn44s, which isn't my best time ever, but fairly close to it. This made me happy as I was afraid that after 5+ weeks of not biking, I'd have struggled a lot more through it. I also got somewhat wet due to the fog/clouds condensing on tree leaves, and creating big droplets that would fall on me as I rode by, but while it felt cold, I ended up being sufficiently thermally protected. Actually I think the gersey probably made the difference between me having a nose slightly running at the end, and a pneumonia ;)
Anyway, the new clothes rule. Thanks :)

(Oh, I also had a good time keeping up with a buggati riding up pagemill :) )

Montebello calling

2004-05-24T16:42:00Z

Current Music: ID &T; Classics - The Megamix
Current Mood: Brain no worky worky :)

Yeah, so while I had plenty to keep me at home, I just couldn't bear to skip another day of exercising. It had been 10 days since I stopped due to my cold...
I didn't get fancy, I just went to my usual spot, Montebello, happened to meet a fellow miata friend from BAMO over there (funny how I meet people in that parking lot), and went for the ride.
I already noticed on the way to the parking lot that I had forgotten my heart rate monitor (doh), and half way down the path, I see a "you are wearing your helmet, right?" sign and say double-doh (it was in my car in the parking lot).

Oh well, today was not a day I was going to use my brain apparently... I did grizzly back up in 24:48, which isn't bad (second best time), but wasn't better than my last time even though I had hopes to have done better. I guess I shouldn't have been too hopefull after having been without any exercise for 10 days and having just recovered from a cold...

At least I'm able to clear the river without stepping off my bike now, but I still can't make it through the pile of rocks on the other side (one day maybe).
Further on the path, there is that really tough piece that I've just had to step down for the last 2 times I tried it, and this time I refused to go through without making it, so I went back down and up 8 times, until I managed to clear it. What was cool is that soon afterwards, there is a really steep incline covered with loose sand, and I somehow managed to barely clear it in third gear. That one was very tricky, my back wheel slipped a lot despite the higher gear, and I was actually happy to have gone through that one without setting a foot down.

The rest was mostly uneventful, I just need to change the break pads on my protege, I've apparently managed to wear them out on my last trips up and down 84
(well down mostly, I guess :)

I've moved all my Montebello pictures in the same directory. They're all here now

Mountain Biking, new shoes

2004-05-10T14:48:00Z

Current Music: Paul Oakenfold - Great Wall CD1 - 02 Little Wonder - Eclipse
Current Mood: ask me later :)

After advise from Naomi and Xav, I broke out and went to buy some biking shoes with a clip that fit my pedals (Shimano SPDs), and I found out what Xav was actually talking about when he kept mentioning clits :)
(ok, I'll skip the lame jokes about them having to be the right size and so forth ;)
This did cost me $130 ($110 shoes from specialized, plus $20 for the plate and clip), and it felt wrong to pay that much for shoes, but I have to start living like I actually do earn decent money once in a while. Saving is good, but what's the point of money if it's just sitting in a bank earning really meager interest (yes, if I didn't hate paperwork as much I would actually be investing it somewhere).

Anyway, after riding home on my bike from the bike store, having just proceeded to lock myself out of my car (which is hard since I carry two separate keys for that exact reason), I finally made it back to my car with a 3rd key (I figured it was faster than calling AAA on a sunday), and left, quite late (past 17:40) for Skyline.
I did my usual ride, and actually scored a 24mn33secs up grizzly flat, my personal best by a whole 45 seconds. Unfortunately, I achieved that time both thanks to the clips on the shoes and to the fact that I felt tired and my legs weren't happy from the very beginning, so I did a fair amount of climbing while being out of the saddle instead of sitting on the bike (en danceuse en Français dans le texte).
Either way, who cares, I did a great time while being in a questionable shape.

Because I have questionable common sense, and I enjoy pushing myself a bit apparently, when I reached skyline back up from the lake, it was 19:40, and dailight was running out fast, but I just didn't want to ride back on the road, I took the trail across which I had taken once (white oak trail). It is reasonably challenging after a good ride, but I went as fast as I could so as not to get stuck uphill in a forest in the dark.
Long story short, I made down and up in less than 25mn, and somehow missed a turn and ended up back on pagemill instead of the montebello parking, and by then I was so disoriented that I didn't even know which part of pagemill was up or where the parking was, so I figured I'd try what looked up, since going down past the parking was a really bad plan after the sun had set (it was twilight by then).
Somehow, what I thought was up ended up being down, and going to the parking lot where my car was, so I made it back ok, with 10mn of twilight to spare :)

Summary: I was very happy to have brought my jacket because it actually was quite cold (not cool; cold). The shoes fit nicely, and while clipping them in definitely takes some using to, and is quite hard when you do an uphill start, at least clipping out hasn't been a problem. I think being able to pedal up (i.e. pull with the legs in addition to pushing) has also been somewhat useful as an alternative source of power when my other muscles were getting tired.
Overall, I do like them, I think they'll grow on me with time.

Comments:
One word: “halleluiah!” :-D
posted by goaliegirl : 20 May, 2004 02:31

ABEC 9: holly shit ('scuse my french :)

2004-04-26T14:42:00Z

So, a few weeks ago, I had a really painful rollberblading experience , and had vouched to replace both the wheels and bearings (I honestly didn't know which ones were responsible for the aweful drag, but I didn't really care).
So, on my way through Big 5 yesterday, I picked up some ABEC 9 bearings (didn't even know it went that high), which is basicaly the highest rating for speed a low drag. At the same time, I bought some new 76cm wheels and made sure to get soft ones (78A instead of the usual 82-84A which last longer, work fine on smooth asphalt, but just don't work well on steven creek's trail, most of the trail is just too rough for hard wheels).
Anyway, I didn't push too hard initially because I wanted to be careful, especially downhill, but I noticed that I was already hitting my checkpoints with good times, and when I got to the end of the trail in 43:30-ish, I realized how far ahead I was, and ended up doing the whole trail (both ways) in 83:27, shattering my best time ever by a whole 6mn (or 53mn faster than with the bad wheels and bearings!!!), and I know I can even do better by pushing a bit more on the way there, and on a cooler day.
I can only say one thing: Whoa! (19km/h over 26km, and not much slower than what I did on my bike).
So, while the wheels and bearings cost more than my rollberblades when I bought them, I don't regret a single penny

Mountain Biking in the mountains this time.

2004-03-22T09:46:00Z

Current Music: Paul Oakenfold - Great Wall / Jon B - Mercury Skies
Current Mood: Exercised out :)

So, that was it, I just had to go try out that new mountain bike, where it was meant to be used: a mountain (MonteBello off Skyline et Page Mill, where Xav took me most times we went together).
I got (drove that is) to the top around 09:30 and realized that I had forgotten to take my biking gloves (helps quite a bit when you are rushing downhill in stones and dirt: the bike shakes a lot and your palms get all of it). Oh well, at least I had plenty of water and advil ;)

Anyway, I went down the rather steep incline filled with sand and stones, where the trail begins, and about 20secs later, I had flown over the bike and ended up in some bushes (this so sounds like a blog I read recently, not even funny...).
That was kind of vexing since I had never fallen from any of my bikes, but the good things is that due to the terrain, I was going really slowly (it's hard enough to stay in control as is), and I ended up with minor injury to my left knee (the one not protected by the light brace I wear, go figure...)

I realized right away that my seat was just too high for the terrain and the slope, causing my center of gravity to be way too high (gee, funny how physics works).
After lowering my seat (and being very happy that being a good engineer, I had brought my tools with me), I went back onto the trail.
My first path up just didn't work as I found out that my chain would wedge itself if I downshifted from 3rd to 1st on my front gear (and this repeatedly, which made taking paths up a bitch. I'll have to get that fixed)

I was a bit leery of what was going to happen because of how poorly I performed last time I went with Xav (many months ago, in the middle of my 1 year exercising break, and ouch, did I suck), but I was feeling great, if not a bit apprehensive of the new bike, and its handling in turns and terrain with minimal traction, and its brakes.
So, while I didn't have what it took to go balls out on the way down, it was just as well considering and I got to the creek at the bottom in one piece. Crossing it was fun considering the water level, but somehow, I didn't end up in the water (I even managed to make every single turn on the twisty slope down, without setting my foot down once).

After that, was grizzly flat (BTW, if I ever catch the sick bastard who named a 4km 330m (1000-foot) climb a 'flat', I'll make sure to convey my appreciation to him). I knew that I had my shi^H^H^Hstuff together when I got to the top after 26mn, a bit tired, but without having stopped once, or even lost my balance or traction in the couple of dicy places on the way up (if your gear is too low, you get too much torque and your back wheel spins in the dirt, you stop, you set your foot down, and you lose, and if your gear is too high for your leg muscles, you can't pedal up, and you stop and lose too :)
Heart rate on the way up was 165 to 175 sustained, not too bad.

After crossing skyline, and going down, a moment of panic took me when I arrived at a crossroad: left or right? Xav was saved by the fact that I had just lost my last bar of cell reception, so I didn't get to call him and wake him up to ask him :)
(ok, turns out he was actually road biking at that time, so I wouldn't have gotten him anyway)
Then something miraculous happened: I took the map I had stashed in my backback and found in the parking lot I started from, found the trail names, and actually found the right direction by using the map (I was also happy to have that compass on my keychain :)
Miracles happen every day, I tell you ;-)
Later, I found another cross road where the trail was clearly marked as being on the left, but my intuition told me to take the wide dirt road on the right, and it just so happened to indeed be the way I used to take with my friend (no idea what taking the other side would have led me :)
The cool part is that I got to see 5 deer while on that road, and after that, things were mostly uneventful, and I ended up at my car after a bit more than 90mn (not counting a little sprint where I reached 52.6kph)

Total Time: 1:32:03
Distance: 18.8km
Speed: 12.3kph avg / 52.6kph max (woot!)

you can find the rest of the pictures here

After that, I had way too much fun driving down pagemill in my poor little mazda protege, its crappy tires and regular brakes (the Audi TT convertible that was driving a good pace in front of me, pulled over to let me go after a while :)
Good thing I strap down the bike very carefully, one wouldn't want it to go flying in some turn ;-)

Painful Rollerblading

2004-03-21T08:18:00Z

Current Music: DJ Tiësto - Live At Revolution - Amsterdam
Current Mood: Much better after a few litres of shake in my belly :)

So, after an hour of step, icing up my knees while doing a little Email, and some coding for work, I headed outside for rollerblading (I had just replaced my worn wheels with brand new ones. I had cleaned up my apec 5 bearings (technically good stuff) with the proper bearing cleaner after coming back from Australia in January, however, due to weather and snow season, I had never gotten the chance to go out with them until today.
Anyway, I headed out around 12:08, for a 45mn ride to the trail, and then the expected 90mn or so for the 26km on the stevens creek trail (Mountain View to East Palo Alto).
I was in decent shape, and energized after step, so with the new wheels and cleaned up bearings, I had hopes to shatter my trail record of 89:32s (17kph, which isn't too shaby for rollerblades). However, while riding to the trail (I usually drive because it's a little ways from where I live), I noticed that I had to apply more effort than I was used to, but maybe it was just because of the pavement, and my memory.
Yet, when I finally hit the beginning of the trail 45mn later, I got to my first checkpoint 3mn late, my second one 11mn late, my 3rd one 13.5mn late, and my half way point 25mn late.
In the end, after much effort, as it felt that I was really dragging dead weight (other than my own I mean :), and a forced stop to buy a died coke with lemonade as one litre of water was a completely insufficient for the heat and the lenght of the whole ride (almost 4H), I finally got home...

When I removed my rollerblades, I saw the 2 huge blisters on the inside of my ankles, which I usually end up with (although usually smaller), and realized that I wasn't walking really straight, or that for that matter my legs were barely supporting me ;)
So, it was time for a killer 'marc special' potluck shake in the mixer (ingredients: ice cream, no water or ice, frozen fruits, frozen juice extract, and water else may come in handy in the freezer or fridge, mix and adjust until a spoon almost stands upright (but not quite, or the mixer can't stir it)).
I feel much better after having re-hydrated a little bit (1.5 litre or so :), and I guess about 5H of aerobic exercise will do for today and will make up for the days I didn't do any this week and the boring and uneventful mexican food (as always for mexican food) that I had to eat last night

I was good exercise, but excrutiatingly slow and painful, if I had had a little less determination and common sense, I'd have turned around instead of insisting on doing the whole ride as planned.
Anyway, those wheels and bearings are coming out. At this point, I do not even care which one slowed me down if it's not a combination of both. I'll just get some bad ass abec 7 rated bearings this time, never clean them again (just buy new ones) and see if I can score some better wheels than the crappy ones I ended up with (kinda sad as they looked ok from their big size (76) and index (82A))
That's too bad, I've usually had good luck with the wheel specials at big5 in the past (actually my last two pairs were terrific), but just as I buy two new sets, I apparently got a really crappy kind. Funny, I can already hear M.E. telling me that I got what I pay for. I just hate it when other people are right :)

Total time roller blading: 3H50
Time On trail: 2:16:25 (a full 47mn slower than my best time, and my worst time ever :( )
Heart Rate: 145bpm avg / 176bpm max
Water consumed on trail: 1.5l
Weight lost (mostly water): 6 pounds (2.7kg) (not counting water consumed while I was on the road)
Resulting Body Weight: 156.2 pounds (it's been about a year since I reached that after exercise, yoohoo)

At least I know better than dealing with my blisters before taking a shower (or the water gets in there, which is quite painful), but that doesn't quite solve the attrocious pain (for about 5-10s) of putting alcohol on them to disinfect before putting a band-aid. Maybe alcohol just isn't the way to go (but then again, I kind of knew that ;)

I was planning to go mountain biking tomorrow, but my mountain bike buddy swiched to road biking, so I'll have to find someone new to go with. Of course, I could just go by myself, but considering the trails, it's not an extremely wise thing to do (not as bad as scuba diving by yourself, but you get the idea). Mmmh, I may just go for it anyway, I need to go back and see how I fare...

New bike shakeout / Visiting an old step class

2004-03-17T12:25:00Z

Current Music: Trance Nation 2002
Current Mood: Burning Calories feels good sometimes

So, I recovered my mountain bike from the store after they installed a brand new shifter, anti-thorn tubes, tuffies (protection between the tube and the tire), and did a full tuneup.
While it's a mountain bike, and I can't expect road bike-like performance on it, I was able to tell on my ride to work that I was definitely getting faster on it (not that much its weight in my opinion, but the fact that it had less overal drag and friction in its moving parts).
It was $230 (ugh!), but considering that I paid zilch for it, it's not a bad price of a good mountain bike like this (it's the red one )

Stats going to work:
Heart rate 162bpm avg / 198bpm max
Distance: 9.3km
Speed: 26.5kph avg / 43.8kph max
Time: 20:06s
(that included jumping a fence that was put in the middle of the west entrance I usually take, but I was probably also in better physical shape this morning)

Stats come back to work and riding directly to 24H fitness in sunnyvale (on Lawrence):
Heart rate 156bpm avg / 178bpm max
Distance: 12.3km
Speed: 28.4kph avg (woot!)/ 39.6kph max
Time: 26:23s

Step Class:
Heart Rate: 165bpm avg / 190bpm max
Time: 1H

I'm still not getting over that step class. It was my (somewhat distant) second preferred class from a while ago (like more than a year), and I got right back into it, did all my double spins, and other modifications on top of the teacher's routine, as if I had never left.
However, the 30mn intense bike ride from work, plus the high temperature in the room, and probably the fact that I just don't do 4H of step a week anymore, made it so that I started to struggle a bit 30mn into the class and while I was still nailing quadruple jump rotating V-steps, I could tell that I was barely making them (then again, I've never seen anyone try to follow me and do them too, so... ;-D), and 40mn into the class, I just had to stop and drink, I was sooo dehydrated (usually, I can finish the class on my before the class drink).
But seriously, I have no right to complain, I did quite well considering that I hadn't done that class for more than a year, and astonishingly, while I did all the bad rotating steps that got me in trouble in the first place, my knee (which I'm icing up anyway as I'm typing this) isn't in pain. I know I wouldn't get away with 4H of this per week, but this is still great news.

Also, while waiting for the class, I tried a few chin ups to see if I could still do them, and I managed 8, one more than I've ever done (and the last time I tried was probably 18 months ago). Schweet ;-)

Bikes...

2004-03-15T15:31:00Z

Current Music: Paul Van Dyk - Live at Loveparade 2003
Current Mood: Ouch, Sunburned a bit

So, I picked up two abandoned bikes at work, one of which is a very
nice mountain bike (dual suspension), which now gives me a total of 3 (my original mountain bike, which will probably be a road bike which just won't go as fast, a bare basic mountain bike, which will make a great burning man bike , and my new mountain bike). You can see them all here
In order to beat the heat, I had planned to leave at 08:30, but I still needed to mount the speedo on the new mountain bike, as well as a stupid-ass!@#$%! bike pump which had a mount designed by an absolute idiot who wasted more than one hour of my time with something that just didn't fit together and that I ended up using superglue on.

So, I left slightly late, around 10:00 (doh!), and then came back less than 20mn later because the tubes weren't holding air properly (they did during my short test saturday, but apparently, that wasn't good enough), so I had to go home and get my old bike (double Doh). It's only around 10:30 that I left my old mountain bike (which I can now tell drags and is definitely heavier), but I still took it for 54km or 3H15mn.
Good distance, not great time, since I stopped to take pictures, and had a few issues with the water level being way too high, and making the path I wanted to take, increasingly dicy

So, I have that thing where I don't like to turn around, and I was taking a path which I remember jogging on one time, and ended up with mud all the way to my lower knee because I had refused to backtrack. Well, someone smart would have learned, but here, I knew the path had to be somewhere on the other side, except that I never found it, and on my way back, drowned my front tire in mud.

Damnit, my brand new shiny cross traning shoes!!!

Anyway, after reaching University Avenue, jumping a fence that was about my height (ok, that's fun, I locked the bike in the up position on one tire, escalated it, and caught a tree branch that allowed me to clear the fence, but not as much fun as trying the lift the bike over afterwards when you're by yourself, very heavy and hard...). Sure, I could have backtracked through the freeway onramp I took to get there (please, don't ask :-D), but I don't like to admit defeat :)

You can find the pictures from the ride here . It was good exercise, and while I got ligthly sunburned (made it home by 13:30, which was a bit late), I found out that I could do 30 straight pushups again while stretching (yoohoo)

I went to the bike shop afterwards and found out that it'll cost $200 for a full tuneup, changing the tubes with real thorn resistant ones, and changing the 24 speed shifter to a real one ($100, ouch!).
I should get a killer mountain bike after that, though.

Finally biked to work

2004-03-10T03:37:00Z

Current Music: Dave Pearse - Some Mix (I was watching the road, not the player)

After working a few hours and feeling sleepy (no idea why :), I courageously went to bed again around 9:30, and almost got 45mn of sleep. I felt much better after that, to the point that I realized that it was nice outside (might have something to do with why I was so warm in my nice clothes yesterday), and I also celebrated my 7th pound shedded this morning, so I decided "WTH, let's bike to work today".
It's cool because I actually get to wear my bootcamp clothes (with just a short on top, trust me, it's better that way ;-D), so that's less stuff to worry about, and 20mn later, I was on my way.

End result:
Heart rate: 151bpm min / 159bpm avg / 171bpm max
Time/Speed: 22mn15s for 9.2 km or 25km/h
Not too bad for a heavy mountain bike, and me not having biked for 4 months.
(note that 25km/h includes slowing down for lights and so forth, but I was able to get
all of them green or more or less run them this morning. Usually I have to wait for 2 or so).
It doesn't yet beat my 22mn flat for 10.1km (return trip from my old building), but
it's a decent start.

Step

2004-03-05T12:48:00Z

Boot camp was a bit boring today, I'm just not a fan of cardio kickboxing (and our teacher is a karate teacher, so it's obviously easy for him to wing a class by doing cardio kickboxing when he runs out of material for a class).
Anyway, I got home a bit bored, so I put on some good techno (incidently what you'll hear during most high impact step classes as there is nothing better to put in the mood and give the correct beat) and went stepping on my home step for 30-40mn, to actually sweat a little and make my shower worth my time.

Incidently, I got a bit melancholic as I realized that I've now forgotten most of the steps that I used to do
with Eric, the best high impact teacher ever IMO, at 24H fitness. Since not only my knee is blown (I had
to ice it again as it just will not stand the rotations that I do anymore), but Eric stopped teaching step after 20 years, I've come again to the painful realization that I'll most likely never be able to do those insane step classes that I, and my peers there, enjoyed so much. Every other class I've gone to, is just very pale in comparison :(
I did enjoy every single minute of it, but now I wish that I had taken a few videos of the best classes that
we took, and the insane steps and combos that we built on the fly on top of the regular class. Where am I ever going to find that again? (assuming my knee would be capable of withstanding it, which it probably won't)
Sigh, it's sometimes hard to admit that your best days of something are behind you for good...