Muscular Endurance Week 3: Break Week!

Tuesday's workout was different than what we've been doing the previous weeks of this series. We had been doing four 10- or 11-minute subthreshold intervals. Today, we combined what we'd been working on all year and did a 25-minute (or so, not positive on the time) tempo effort, 3 hills, a 12-minute subthreshold interval, and 2 sprints. I did the 12-minute interval in my aerobic zone, so basically everything for me today was tempo. I am feeling much better, but I really did not want to get out of a steady aerobic zone, and I wanted to be able to focus on riding a solid, strong 90 minutes. My sprint at the end was 13W higher than I've done in the past, so I think I succeeded in not breaking myself down too much during the rest of the workout.

Sprint 1: 697
Sprint 2: 739!

Wednesday was the 100th day of the year. With my friend Will from Iron Will Sports and Fitness (website here) (and whoever else wants to do it -- I'm not really sure how many people he has involved). I have been doing a push up challenge where you add 1 push up each day. Since Wednesday was day 100, I did 100 push ups. They are not all military style, but neither are they all girl push ups. I usually try to do as many military style ones as I can before switching to on-the-knees push ups. Then at some point I return to military style ones, and I usually end up doing about half one way and half the other.

This challenge, though never really easy past January, felt like it really got real after day 60. The rest of the year is going to be fun!

I did not do push ups on March 23 (around day 83), so through Wednesday, April 10, I had done 5,149 push ups.

I got in a quick ride at lunch. My road choices are limited and my time is limited, so I went across Briley Parkway and did a few hill repeats.

Wednesday bike ride

After work I met Kat for a quick hike (5 miles, 1:20) on the red trail at PWP. It was an absolutely amazing day, and the hike was great. I was so happy she was able to meet me--hiking with company is much more fun than hiking alone.

We started at the Chickering Road Entrance (top right)
and hiked clockwise on the red trail

If you want to hike PWP, one of the main entrances is off of Highway 100 where you see EEP WELL / NIC AREA (Deep Well Picnic Area). There is an entrance from Belle Meade Blvd, but I've never started from there. There is also a way to get to the red trail from EWP (you can see the red and white (candy cane) connector trail in the lower right-hand corner), and this adds 2 miles to the 4.5-mile look. When I first started hiking at PWP, I always started at the Deep Well entrance because I didn't know about the others. Kat introduced me to the Chickering entrance (adds 0.5 miles), and Anna introduced me to EWP, where I found the connector trail. Friends are great!

I also stopped in at the new Publix in Donelson. The parking lot was pretty full, but it was not even a quarter as busy as my sister's normal grocery store, Wegman's. However, it is super nice inside and I can see me going there more often than the Kroger that is basically right next door to it.

My favorite section...besides the salad bar!

Thursday's ride at T's was very similar to Tuesday's. Except that I started Sprint #1 early and reached only 579W. On Sprint #2 I hit 714W, so much improved over the 4 minutes of rest. Basically an all-aerobic-zone workout, and it was a really good workout.