Extreme Workouts

Extreme conditions call for extreme measures. Not to be confused with extreme weather conditions, this weekends extreme conditions involves work. I'm posting from the Motor City, Detroit. Actually just north of Detroit but that point is moot.


I'm performing a computer migration for a customer. I drove up (2.5 hours) to my customer so I could prep for the weekends activities. I'm up here all weekend. Saturday is the main event which will be at least a 15 hour day. I'm hoping to be out and driving back home no later than noon on Sunday.


So I'm coming of a workout high with my Thursday double. I wanted to carry the momentum into my weekend workouts. But I'm up in Detroit for the weekend. The best thing about being able to drive to my customers......I can pack all the shit I want.


So I put my bike, trainer, workout bag, gatorade, two water bottles, weekend bag, laptop backpack, bike shoes, running shoes, and casual shoes all into the Pilot for the weekend. I was determined to get in my workouts. Here are the workouts for reference:


3:10 BRICK WORKOUT

Ride 2:30/Zone 2
Warm Up 20 min- Zone 1
Do 4 x 10 min Pup to Zone 3
Big Chain Ring- Pushing Big Gear 12-15/ 85+ rpms
Take 10 min off easy spin Zone 1


Do 8 x 1 min High Cadence spin- small chain
Go for 100+- spin the legs out- Zone 3
Take 2 min off moderate- Zone 2
Finish steady aero position for 26 minutes


Run 40 min- 1st 10 min
Zone 3- then back to Zone 2




1:45 Long Run
Long Run 1:45 min/ Zone 2
From :50 min - 1:10 Pup up the effort- to 10K pace-

right at Lactate Threhold for 20 min- then do 10 min easy jog
Finish run Zone 2 - 25 minutes


Okay........you now see the picture that has been painted. First thought was to do the brick Saturday night and the long run Sunday when I got home. After meeting with the customer and laying out the time-line of events there would be NO brick on Saturday. So I had to re-arrange my plans. I'm mean......I'm in Detroit, what else was I going to do on a Friday night before a work weekend. I wasn't going to the casino's to gamble (don't gamble anyways) or visit Winsdor (remember I don't gamble, what else would I do there....wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more)
So I check into my hotel and get set up for my 2.5 hour ride. Oh.My.God. Two and a half hours riding my trainer in a hotel room? I checked out the movies I could order and Casino Royale was available and it's a 2:24 movie. Brilliant! So I'm good to go. Check out these picks of my setup.

What the room looked like with the bike on the trainer:

I used the desk chair for my goodies and TV Remote:

Those are some damn good snacks. I brought the Clif bars from home and the others are from the hotel welcome bag.....(I only ate the crackers)

And the view of the TV from the bike.

The workout went well. I hit each segment in the zones I needed and time went by fairly quickly. The movie was okay with several spots that dragged on too much. I skipped the 40 minute run post ride because I didn't want to run on the hotel treadmill, low quality garbage.

So I ordered dinner instead, pizza, and called it a night.

Saturday was Go Day for migrating my customer to a new computer system. We were only changing to new hardware but we had to save and restore the information. It was going to be a long day with quite a bit of down-time. I packed my bag in case I could get in a run. The building is next to a high school track.

Here is a picture of the battlefield.

So at 3:30 that afternoon I changed and started my workout. Go back to the top to review the run workout again......that's okay....I'll wait......read it........done? Good, let's continue.

Yes that said a 1 hour 45 minute run. Yes I said I was heading to a running track. 400 meters oval. East/West on the straights with the wind, about 10MPH, coming directly from the west. Time to get down to business.

How much can I tell you about running around a track? The two kids playing on the concession stand roof. The people that came and went while I was there. The traffic, sun, water, WIND. Well, the sun was nice. Mid to high 40's during my run. I was in shorts and a short sleeve shirt. The snow was melting around the track and that left puddles at different spots which left the back of my legs rather dirty. And the wind each time I came off the curve and ran west was intimidating.

I was hitting my splits every 1600 meters and would change direction every 4800 meters. Too much going in the same direction I feel is bad for the knees. My first 50 minutes was 7:15 average. I was expecting 8's but was liking what I saw.

My 20 minutes at 10k pace had me at 6:40's. Two years ago my 10k pace was 6:24 but I was also on tired legs for this workout. I finished the run around 7:48 pace.....staying in my appropriate zone.

I summarized my run like this since I kept track of how many meters I did:

22,300 meters = 22.3km = 13.8 miles = 55.75 laps

Oh.My.God. Did I do almost 56 laps on a high school track. I never thought I would ever do that.

But extreme circumstances call for extreme workouts.

Time to rest. Even on a rest day...the Game is still On.