more food, more exercise
I've been thinking a lot about my workout schedule/balance lately. I do a lot of lifting, and when I was walk/running 2-3 miles and/or recumbent biking 30-40 minutes, I could lift 60-75 minutes, 6 days a week and have tons of energy. Now that I've added cycling and tougher swimming to the mix, I think it's time to reconsider that balance. The past 2-3 weeks I have been just ZAPPED of energy. Part of it, I know, is that I haven't been doing a great job increasing my calorie intake on a steady and regular basis, but I think part of it is just that this new-to-me-sport of cycling is taking more out of me than I feel at the time. I hop off the bike and feel great! Yay! Let's! Go! Play! but then later, or the next day, it's zzzz-city, and I'm the mayor of Sleepytown.
I've also had some crankiness in my right knee (unrelated to the IT band, more under the kneecap) which I think I've isolated to suddenly quintupling the workload on my quads. I ended up taking 2 complete days off last week, and my legs felt like fresh fairy dust for my ride on Saturday. But yesterday, at the gym, I got on the leg extension machine, and had to get off after 2 reps because it was irritating my knee - and this was at the end of the workout after leg presses, one-legged squats, lunges, clock lunges, and step-squats, all which need my quad desperately.
The end result is that I think I'm going to cut back on my "leg" lifting days, and only do 1-2 a week. On my leg lifting days, I've cut way back on the weights that isolate the quads - with all the cycling I have been doing, I just don't think I need it as much in the weight room. I also think I need to be better about taking a complete rest day - oftentimes I'll "only" lift on a rest day, or "only" do a short run, or feel in my mind like swimming is a rest day because I was initially only doing 1000 yards, post-surgery. Now that I'm up in the 2500 yard range, I need to remember that swimming isn't a rest day at all. I don't have any sort of "set" exercise schedule - I always rotate lifting arms & back/legs, and I don't lift on my "big" cardio day - either a long ride, or a brick - but as I consider and lay out my week, I'm probably going to let "leg lifting" have it's own day (no cardio) or be coupled with either swimming or a very light cardio day (test run, 30 minutes on spin bike, whatever). I'm hoping this will put some zip back in my zipper zapper. I am interested in advice on this - how do you balance your rest days against whatever cardio you do against whatever lifting you do? What works for you?
Now, about increasing that calorie intake....
Last night the poet cooked bruschetta - this is one of my absolute favorite dishes and I am awful at making it. I found a recipe somewhere a month or so ago and he made it and it was brilliant. So now we probably have it once a week or so.
While he was cooking it, I made a giant cookie cake. OH MAN. It's amazing. It's almost the same as my cookie recipe but for some reason it is so much more yummertastical. I have no idea why. I put in two big gunks of peanut butter and a few fistfuls of chocolate chips. Also, all I have in the house is wheat flour, but it didn't seem to make a difference. We ate a good hunk of it last night...I also had it, with some grapes and tea, for my second breakfast this morning. And I will probably have it with my lunch. And as a snack. And after dinner. Maybe FOR dinner. Hmm.
I can't stop eating it.
My first breakfast was a fistful of Tums (yeah, we ate a LOT last night) and a granola bar at 5:30am, because I met Heather for a gorgeous sunrise bike ride this morning! I love that I live here. I know half of you are moving across the country in 2 days or later this summer, but I'm in the middle of a love-fest with DC right now. I had a good love-fest going on when I was a runner, but being on a bike has blown that outta the water. I've never gotten to explore this much of the city in the (cough) 8 years I've lived here, and it's just fantastic. The poet very kindly dropped me off at Roosevelt Island before 6am so I didn't have to bike up there in the dark (thanks), and this was my view crossing the Memorial Bridge right about 6:00am:
I KNOW. No, seriously, I was grouchy and had a tummyache when I got up and was bitching at myself about agreeing to ride at some insane hour and then the dog was yarking and then trying to eat it and my tummy HURTS, but it was so beautiful out that it turned me around and I'm totally in for this early-morning ride business. My long weekend rides have been starting in the 7:30-8:00 hour, and I've been missing out.
Anyway, we rode down and around Haines Point, the mall, and other than almost getting plowed over by a bus (my bad), it was such a great ride. We had a great time chatting (I hope) and I'm looking forward to more of these super-early-morning summer rides. Thanks, Heather!!