Filed under: British Military Fitness, Reading Half Marathon, X-bike, circuits, cycling, half marathon training, running | Tags: Barmouth, BarYar, cycling, running, spinning, X-bike, xdream, Yarmouth
Rather foolishly, I have agreed to a two-wheeled challenge over Easter weekend.
Along with a group of friends, I will be cycling from Barmouth to Yarmouth, the so-called BarYar Challenge. When I agreed to this, I didn’t actually realise they meant Barmouth on the west coast of Wales to Great Yarmouth in Norfolk. For those of you who weren’t listening in geography lessons, this is quite a long way: around 250 miles in three days. Yikes. Some of the BarYar group are using this as a training ride for the Land’s End to John O’Groats, and you can read about their exploits over at Girls on Cogs.
I haven’t been out on my bike yet this year- I still harbour some residual fear of cycling after last year’s little topple, and – well, call me a wimp – but it’s been a bit on the chilly/icy/wet side lately. Instead, I’ve been working on my legs in the gym and continuing with Reading Half Marathon training/British Military Fitness.
Mind you, after the Hardwick X-Stream 10k last weekend, I wasn’t fit for anything on Monday.
By Tuesday, the experience was fading to a more distant memory so I went to the gym. There, I hopped onto the Xdream (like the X-Bike spinning machines, but with an interactive screen to simulate a race on various different terrains). I did four races against my imaginary friends and won all of them. But I think this was to do with being forced to race on the “beginner” setting rather than my amazing cycling. I even fell off the imaginary bike a few times. Afterwards some lower body weights for calves, hamstrings, quads, glutes adductors and whatever the opposite of those are.
On Wednesday, I found the British Military Fitness significantly more enjoyable in the slightly warmer evening air – and even got to the end of the class thinking, “oooh, is it over already?”
Finally, I went to a spinning class this morning. The instructor Matt – who normally entertains with an eclectic selection of pop, rock and indie – put one of the manufacturer’s CDs, which guided you through the class at different tempos. It was good and I worked hard, but it was a bit soulless and not as enjoyable as Matt’s normal classes. Still, good to try something new once in a while.
So, this weekend – need to do a good run, and maybe some circuits to work the legs again.Or should I be dusting off the bike?
Filed under: 5k, British Military Fitness, Pulse8, X-bike, food, gym, spinning | Tags: anna friel, british rmilitary fitness, gym, jonathan ross, running, sauna, spa, spinning
As I said to a few people at work today, I’m really trying to like the snow, but I can’t get away from the fact that it’s just so flipping cold. I can cope with this when I’m wrapped up all warm on a ski slope, clutching a mug of hot chocolate and tanning my panda-eyed face in the mountain sun – but it’s just annoying when you’re trying to get on with your normal day-to-day life, it’s chucking down half-snow-half-rain, it’s not quite bad enough to shut the office or cancel meetings, so you carry on, your feet are soaked, people are still driving up your backside even though they’re skidding all over the shop and the underground is closed. Why is that? I mean, it is – by definition – beneath the snow line.
This week has been a bit crap exercise-wise. Monday brought chaos to the roads and I needed to see the doctor first thing for another whopping dose of antibiotics. Tuesday wasn’t much better. I managed a spinning class on Wednesday, was in London all day Thursday and got up this morning – intending to go to the gym – but then I looked out of the window, decided I didn’t fancy de-snowing the car at 6am…and I went back to bed for an hour and a half.
I decided enough was enough this evening, and headed to the gym on the way home from work instead. I’ve never done this before. I have a fabulous pre-9am membership at Pulse8 which costs just £22 per month. I go before work for a spinning class, or circuits or a run – and it works well for me. My visit in the evening was most confusing – the place looked more or less the same, but all the people were different. And there were considerably more of them.
Anyway, did the 5k challenge = 26:55.
Then some upper body weights – Red Bucket tells me he’s doing some work on his arms before our ski trip. My arms are weak.
Then about 20 minutes on one of the X-bikes – did a random routine in time to whatever appeared on my iPod. That worked quite well.
Finally, I loafed in the sauna and spa pool for a while.
I have to say, it was rather nice to not have to rush around and get to work afterwards. I’m home now, feeling all tingly after my workout and full after my omelette and several handfuls of chocolate chips (had to raid the baking cupboard for those as I’m all out of Lindt balls).
I’ve got one eye on Jonathan Ross and Anna Friel drinking some foul-smelling green juice. Presumably she lives on that in order to stay so skinny. And I’m trying to decide whether to brave British Military Fitness in the morning, or be a wuss and go to the gym…
Filed under: Pulse8, X-bike, gym, running, spinning | Tags: gym, Pulse8, running, spinning
It’s become apparent that there is a hardcore group of gym bunnies at my gym – Pulse8 - who turn up every single morning without fail. I thought I’d try to emulate this myself and resolved to go every morning for a week. It didn’t start well: I was a tiny bit hungover on Monday after the post-Bupa Great Capital Run celebrations, knew I had to write a proposal when I got to work, so switched the 6am alarm off and stayed in bed for another hour and a half.
However, I did make it the rest of the week:
Tuesday - half-hour circuits class with Miki, (Pulse8’s resident motherly figure, a 67-year-old former triathlete who puts us all to shame with boundless energy). Then 20-minute run on the treadmill, experimenting with songs with varying beats per minute (more about that some other time). 3.57km.
Wednesday - spinning with Richard “pull those abs in tight”. Exciting because the 35 new X-bikes have been moved to the other end of the studio onto a tiered platform arrangement so that everyone can see the instructor on the stage at the end. They’ve got some nice floor lights and bought some new speakers as well, I think, as the music seemed to be louder. After spinning, did some abs and lots of stretching.
Thursday - gym again for 30-min run on treadmill with more new music. 5.27km. Some random exercises on the Swiss ball, in a vague attempt to improve core stability.
Friday - spinning again, with an Aussie called Luke I think, who I’ve never seen before. Lowlight of the class: a Fleetwood Mac number.
I have to say it’s actually easier to get up every day at the same time than it is to get up at 6am one morning, and 7.30 the next because my body seems to cope with a regular wake-up call better than a randomly timed one. I’ve slept consistently well every night – though that’s partly to do with some very long days at work and not going to bed early enough – and felt more productive during the day. So maybe there’s something in this early bird business…
I also remain quite impressed with the facilities at Pulse8. There’s clearly investment going into the equipment, but my pre-9am fee is just £23 a month. There’s quite a lot of griping among the regulars about some of the instructors, but I think they’re all pretty sound. You get some that are better than others, but that’s the case wherever you go. I just need them to change the radio station in the changing rooms from the inane 2TENfm to Radio 4, and get them to install a few more plugs for hair straighteners, and I’ll be an even happier gym bunny myself.
Filed under: X-bike, gym, healthy eating, running | Tags: healthy eating, running
Stood on the scales this morning and weighed in at 10 stone 5. Oh dear. I think that’s the heaviest I’ve ever been. At 5′4″, I probably should weigh about 9 stone 7 – I’ve got down to that a couple of times over the past couple of years, but that’s generally been when I’ve been having a bad time for some reason. I’m happy enough just under 10 stone, but definitely don’t like going over.
This is largely the reason I started running in the first place. I didn’t just wake up one morning and fancy a jog. Rather, I put on a stone in my first year at University after living on crap Hall food and snakey-b for two terms; and decided drastic action was required. I’ve been running since then for 12 years – albeit on and off, and mixed up with other types of exercise. It sure as hell beats dieting.
I’m afraid it makes me laugh inwardly to hear other people banging on about their latest diet, which involves cutting out wheat, dairy, meat, any form of carbohydrate or living on cabbage soup – but fails to suggest doing any form of exercise.
I absolutely love cooking, eating and drinking…especially with friends and family. So I run to compensate. If I burn off the same number of calories as I consume, my weight should remain roughly the same. Looks like I got my maths a bit wrong lately though – time to hit the road/treadmill/x-bike with a bit more enthusiasm…
Also requiring significantly more enthusiasm is my website project. I’ve got as far as buying www.irunbecauseilovefood.co.uk, and now need to find a hosting company. Any tips gratefully received – though you’ll probably have difficulty communicating them because my comments box won’t work since I pointed the blog at the new domain. Boo to complicated techie stuff that I don’t understand.
Filed under: London-Brighton bike ride, X-bike, running, spinning | Tags: London-Brighton bike ride, spinning, X-bike
Having failed to get up early enough at any point this week to get the gym, I did manage to drag myself out of bed for one last spinning class before the London-Brighton bike ride on Sunday. As always, I was glad I made the effort once I got there. A different instructor took the class this morning – Matt – and it started off a bit slowly with some horrendous R&B crap as background music.
There’s a Sound vs Silence debate taking place on Runner’s World at the moment where two writers have swapped their usual running styles. The music nut has had his iPod confiscated, and the “running purist” has been plugged into headphones. Despite running years ago with no music before the iPod and even Minidisc player were invented, there’s just no case for silence in my book. But it’s just as important to think about the type of music. The chap who normally runs to the sound of his own heartbeat was sent out on his first iPod run with Dizzee Rascal. No wonder the poor bloke lost the will to live within the first few metres. He’s onto Mozart now. Can’t say that would flick my switch either.
Anyway, happily Matt turned out to have a wide variety of music on his iPod this morning and we left the R&B behind and upped the tempo with some guitar-and-drums rock music, involving some X-bike handlebar action and clapping during the chorus of a particularly catchy tune, and culminating in a standing climb, pumping the handlebars to Chelsea Dagger by The Fratellis. Jack Johnson helped us cool down, and I left the class with a smile on my face.
Filed under: London-Brighton bike ride, X-bike, cycling, nike+ sportband, spinning | Tags: cycling, London-Brighton bike ride, nike+ sportband, spinning, X-bike
Last Saturday I decided it was time for a “proper” bike ride, so headed up to my parents and went out with my Dad. He cycles several times a week to meet the other retired old gits at the “nursing home” (in reality a garden centre that makes homemade scones and beans on toast for them, before they go toddling off to the pub for a lunchtime pint. One of Dad’s mates drank eight pints the other day, and still cycled home in time to cook a Sunday roast. Which was a little confusing for his family on a Thursday evening.)
Anyway, he agreed to take me out and suggest that we go off-road through the Gorhambury House estate near their house. That turned out to be a good plan – because, on the main road that we needed to cycle along to get to the estate, I was cycling a bit like a granny driving a Rover 200…clinging on for dear life and braking my way down any slight descent, on bends and whenever a car approached. I got down the bottom of Bluehouse Hill and into the estate, feeling like a gibbering wreck.
Once into Gorhambury though, I started to relax a bit. Dad gave me some tips on my grip, when to indicate and brake, which made me feel a bit more secure – and we had a really nice ride. Not very far – Dad’s bike showed 12.8 miles (mine showed 14.5, which may be part of the reason I couldn’t accurately calibrate my Nike+ Sportband last week) – but enough to give me the confidence to go out on my own a bit. He’s also put me on to Wiggle to buy gloves and a lock for the London-Brighton. Fantastic service too – my order placed on Saturday arrived on Tuesday morning.
I’ve also done a couple of spinning classes this week. Class sizes are a bit depleted at the moment – not sure everyone’s enjoying the new X-bikes. Admittedly they take a bit of getting used to – and the classes are way harder than normal spinning – but I’m really enjoying them. It’s about as close to the sensation of outdoor biking as you can get indoors.
Filed under: London-Brighton bike ride, Pulse8, St Albans half marathon, X-bike, cycling, gym, half marathon training, nike+ sportband, running, spinning | Tags: cycling, half marathon training, London-Brighton bike ride, nike+s sportband, running, spinning
It’s been a week since my last blog. Contrary to probable assumptions, I have done some exercise; just been too busy at work to write about it.
After my spinning class last Saturday, I headed out with some friends to the Reading Beer Festival. Only we didn’t quite make it, due to excessive queues, so ended up in a very pleasant beer garden drinking shandies in the sunshine instead. I ended up at E&D’s, who introduced me to Wii Fit. For the uninitiated (moi included) it’s a modern and rather more sophisticated take on the 80s aerobics video, to encourage people do a workout in their own home. You have to do various exercises on the Balance Board, which also measures your weight, BMI and…weirdly…your age. Aside from the fact that my BMI was right at the top end of normal, veering dangerously towards overweight, it established my age at 45. I was less than impressed, given that I am really only just about nudging 31. I was even less amused when it classified me as “unbalanced” – not just once – but three times after slalom skiing, ski jumping and hulahooping. Now, I had had a few of the aforementioned shandies and a couple of Long Island Iced Teas, but that is seriously unstable. Maybe that’s why I keep falling over/off things.
By Sunday – with six weeks to go until the London-Brighton – I could put off a bike ride no longer. For the first time since my little tumble, I strapped on my helmet, gingerly put my feet into the toe clips and ambled off down the cul-de-sac where I live. It was hardly rush hour; in fact, there were no cars whatsoever. Which was nice. This hurdle overcome, I took a deep breath and left the cul-de-sac to cycle off around the village, complete with speed humps, corners and an A-road full of cars. I didn’t fall off. Ha! Up yours, Wii Fit.
Tested the Nike+ Sportband on Monday. In the absence of Nike trainers with a hole in the sole, I used the cling-film-and-sellotape trick. Note to self: must get one of those little pouches, otherwise I’m absolutely bound to lose it. Anyway…the device measured my little jog along the river to Dinton Pastures and back at 4.90 miles, in 45:47 mins, during which time I burned 506 calories. I think that’s overstating it a bit to be honest, so I need to calibrate it. I assume these things are set to some kind of average stride length and – as I have little legs – it’s going to think I’ve gone further than I actually have. Anyway, I like it: it’ll give me some kind of idea of the mileage I’m doing during training without forking out for a Garmin, the calorie counter is a nice touch, and I could set myself a few targets online – though after the Wii Fit experience, I’m not sure I enjoy being berated by a computer.
Didn’t make it back to the gym until Friday morning, when I did another spinning class on the X-bikes. I’m getting to grips with the rock-and-roll handlebars, and can pump along in time with the best of them when I’m standing up. Co-ordinating my arms while sitting down is harder. Maybe that’s why I was never any good at the piano at school either.
Filed under: Pulse8, X-bike, gym, spinning | Tags: gym, Pulse8, spinning, X-bike
“We’re going to christen these bikes with our SWEAT!” yelled Shyam over Candi Staton at Pulse8 this morning. The 35 people perched on the spanking new Trixter X-bikes in front of him looked slightly nervous; he’s a nutty spinning instructor at the best of times.
The X-bikes have the same tilting handlebars as the X-dreams, but the gears are operated by a twisting action on the right-hand side of the handlebars and there is no need for a screen. Shyam showed us some of the basic moves with the handlebars…and we were off.
Just had a gentle pedal to start with – wobbling the handlebars to simulate an uneven road surface and get used to the feel of the clicky gears – which are more sensitive that a traditional spinning knob that you turn 360 degrees to get resistance.
Next track we did some seated carves – the idea is to push the handlebar down to one side as you pedal, without leaning the whole upper body. This works the arms, shoulders and core as your legs work the pedals – give much more of a full body workout than normal spinning.
Shyam soon had us up and out of the seat, climbing and rocking the handlebars at the same time. It was quite tricky to get this right – as it feels slightly unnatural to push the right handlebar down as the right knee comes up, particularly as the pedals don’t seem to turn quite so smoothly (maybe I need to increase the resistance even more to overcome the slight jerkiness). You also need to maintain a pretty good sense of rhythm in time with the music to get the full benefit. After a couple of minutes of this, I thought my lungs were going to explode.
Thankfully, there were a few seconds of respite here and there. Unlike traditional spinning bikes, you can stop pedaling and “coast” in a seated or climbing position. But you can still pump the handlebars or squat to work the arms and abs while your legs take a break.
I always have been a bit of a sweaty betty, but I’ve never ejected as much water out of my body during a 45-minute class as I did this morning. Consider my bike (second row, second from the right) well and truly christened. Can’t wait for the next class though…
Filed under: St Albans half marathon, X-bike, gym, half marathon training, nike+ sportband, running, spinning | Tags: half marathon training, nike+ sportband, St Albans half marathon, X-bike, x-dream
It’s 18:10 and I’m drinking my first cup of tea of the day. Anyone that knows me will find this rather surprising, but it’s been a busy one.
Got up at 6am to go to the gym, and ran 5km in just over 30mins on the treadmill’s “sport training” mode, which included some nasty inclines (I hate hills, but know I ought to do more of before the St Albans half marathon). I also had a go on one of the X-dream bikes, manufactured by the same firm as the X-bikes (which are going in today for the spinning class tomorrow). The X-dream looks like a sportier version of a normal exercise bike, with trail bike handlebars which tilt from side-to-side and gears operated by buttons on the handlebars. Mounted on the front is a Dell screen, which shows “you” on a computer-simulated trail. You ride around the trail, overtaking (or being overtaken) by other riders. Your lap is timed along with your speed, cadence, calorie count, and a multitude of other stats and graphs. My only complaint is that my character was obviously male with fat legs. I shall investigate whether you can create and save your own little character, like you can on the Wiii.
After that, I headed into work for an hour or so (spilling my first cup of tea all over my brand new laptop, docking station and papers – whoops). No time for another cuppa before heading into the big smoke for a journo briefing at Yauatcha. Very lovely Japanese food, and nice atmosphere, though a little noisy for business. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before, but chopsticks turned out to be ideal for eating seabass with: my tooth is still not up to metal cutlery, and you can’t really eat with a plastic baby spoon/your fingers in polite company.
Based on Warrior Women’s recommendation, I managed to sneak into Nike Town on my way home to buy a Nike+ Sportband. This is going to revolutionise my running apparently. Hmmm…better get out this weekend while the weather’s nice then.
Right, time for another cuppa…
Filed under: London-Brighton bike ride, St Albans half marathon, X-bike, half marathon training, running, spinning | Tags: half marathon training, London-Brighton bike ride, running, spinning, St Albans half marathon, X-bike
Enough is enough: it’s time I got myself in shape for the St Albans Half Marathon on 8 June and London-Brighton bike ride on 15 June.
I managed a spinning class on Friday when I was at the very lovely Henlow Grange with my Mum, and again on Monday at the gym. Then got back onto the treadmill this morning, doing a comfortable 5.2k in 30 mins. I won’t be breaking any records at the St Albans race, but I am desperate to finish it after having to pull out of the Hastings half due to illness.
I’ll try for the gym again in the morning, though normal spinning is off while the instructors are trained on new X-bikes. No, I’d never heard of them either. According to the manufacturer’s website, the X-bike allows the rider to:
“…functionally engage the upper body and core musculature while the legs do the pedaling. The exercise offers enhanced total-body fitness benefits while bringing the natural movements of outdoor cycling indoors.”
Crikey. I’ll be back to the gym for the Saturday morning class to give them a test run. Watch this space…
