Learning to Appreciate Shorter Workouts

When it comes to cardio workouts, I’ve always preferred long and steady over short and intense: long training runs over track intervals, marathons over 5K’s, long bike rides over hill repeats. However, last spring’s training for my first bike race had me doing shorter rides with pickup intervals and I discovered that I really enjoyed those workouts.

Enter the Peloton 30-minute rides I’ve been doing and I’m enjoying a whole new type of cardio workouts.

 

Overview of the Week

Before getting into each day’s workouts, here’s an overview of my workouts from this past week. Scroll beyond the infographic for daily details…

 

Sunday

Cycling: 40 miles
• Bike: Life Fitness Lifecycle GX Spin
• Average speed: 16.2 MPH
• Surface: N/A
• Elevation gain: N/A
• Start time: 9:30 AM
• Location: basement
• Weather: 64° in basement, 37° and cloudy with an off-and-on wintery mix outside
• What I wore: bike shorts and sports bra

Cycling: 9.7 miles (Peloton HIIT & Hills Ride with Hannah Frankson)
• Bike: Life Fitness Lifecycle GX Spin
• Average speed: 18.5 MPH
• Surface: N/A
• Elevation gain: N/A
• Start time: 12:29 PM
• Location: basement
• Weather: 64° in basement, 37° (feels like 34°) with light snow outside
• What I wore: bike shorts and sports bra

I’d stayed up about two hours past my bedtime the night before watching the Commanders game so I slept in until 8 AM. I took my time getting downstairs to the basement to ride on my spin bike, but it worked out perfectly because my brother called me while visiting our mom and the three of us chatted for well over an hour. We finished our call just as I was wrapping up my long steady ride – I would have been gasping for breath if they’d called while I was doing the Peloton ride resulting in me having to stop the ride.

 

Monday

Strength training: 1 hour of total body

Cycling: 9.7 miles (Peloton Intervals & Arms Ride with Bradley Rose)
• Bike: Life Fitness Lifecycle GX Spin
• Average speed: 18.0 MPH
• Surface: N/A
• Elevation gain: N/A
• Start time: 7:56 AM
• Location: basement
• Weather: 63° in basement, 21° and mostly sunny outside
• What I wore: bike shorts and sports bra

After lifting weights followed by taking an intervals and arms class, I struck up a flexing pose in my red, white, and blue stars and stripes tank. I’m left dominant and stronger on my entire left side, but a couple of skin cancer removal scars on my right arm interfere with the cut lines when I flex making my right arm look much smaller than my left.

 

Tuesday

Cycling: 25 miles
• Bike: Life Fitness Lifecycle GX Spin
• Average speed: 16.0 MPH
• Surface: N/A
• Elevation gain: N/A
• Start time: 6:35 AM
• Location: basement
• Weather: 61° in basement, 12° and mostly cloudy outside
• What I wore: bike shorts and sports bra

Walking: 2.3 miles
• Average pace: 14:44 minute/mile
• Elevation gain: N/A
• Start time: 9:31 AM
• Location: basement
• Weather: 63° in basement, 14° (feels like 5°) and mostly cloudy outside
• What I wore: shorts and sports bra

After Sunday’s snow, things were still too dicy outside to walk (and the feels like temperature didn’t help) so I stayed inside on my treadmill.

 

Wednesday

Strength training: 1 hour of total body

Cycling: 10.2 miles (Peloton HIIT & Hills Ride with Sam Yo)
• Bike: Life Fitness Lifecycle GX Spin
• Average speed: 18.4 MPH
• Surface: N/A
• Elevation gain: N/A
• Start time: 6:094 AM
• Location: basement
• Weather: 60° in basement, 7° (feels like -1°) and clear outside
• What I wore: bike shorts and sports bra

Walking: 2.07 miles
• Average pace: 14:51 minute/mile
• Elevation gain: N/A
• Start time: 6:54 AM
• Location: basement
• Weather: 62° in basement, 8° (feels like -2°) outside
• What I wore: shorts and sports bra

Cycling: 20 miles
• Bike: Life Fitness Lifecycle GX Spin
• Average speed: 16.1 MPH
• Surface: N/A
• Elevation gain: N/A
• Start time: 9:29 AM
• Location: basement
• Weather: 63° in basement, 11° (feels like 4°) and sunny outside
• What I wore: bike shorts and sports bra

I had several cancelations and reschedules (which is unusual) so I had the morning to myself. I still got up at 5 AM to get my workout out of the way early so I’d have plenty of time to finish packing later. Knowing I’d be on the road with more limited time to workout for the next few days, I did a little more than usual.

I mixed things up by walking and doing a Peloton ride before lifting weights – usually I just do a quick warmup and save cardio for later. I really didn’t enjoy this particular class that much  because, at the risk of sounding old, the music was too loud and I had trouble hearing what I was supposed to be doing. I believe Peloton bikes have the suggested resistance and RPM range on the screen, but since I’m using another brand of spin bike, I depend entirely on listening to the instructors’ cues.

 

Thursday

Drive to Columbia, SC with a stop to visit my mom along the way

Walking: 2.22 miles
• Average pace: 14:51 minute/mile
• Elevation gain: N/A
• Start time: 6:05 PM
• Location: hotel gym
• Weather: 65° in gym, 35° and mostly cloudy outside
• What I wore: shorts and s/s shirt

I hadn’t expected to have a chance to get in any sort of workout, but neither my husband nor I were very hungry so we decided to skip dinner and hit the hotel gym for about 30 minutes. There were two other people in the gym – a guy who was jacked and kept dropping and bouncing heavy weights off the floor and a young woman on the treadmill right next to me who was talking on her phone so loudly that I could hear her side of the conversation over my AirPods set to noise canceling. This workout really made me appreciate my home gym. 😉

 

Friday

Strength training: 1 hour of total body

I hadn’t expected to fit a full strength training workout into my day so I did a 15 minute core workout in our hotel room in SC before hitting the road for FL. It was cool and windy when we arrived at our hotel in Ocala, making it less than desirable to go out and explore so we hit the gym for a solid workout.

 

Saturday

Drive From Ocala to Naples

 

Last Week’s Blog Posts

In case you skipped checking in on my blog this past week, here’s what you missed…

 

Questions:
  • • Are you team long and steady, team intervals, or team hybrid? ~ I’m happily becoming team hybrid.
  • • How’s the weather been in your neck of the woods? ~ It was bitterly cold in Virginia and has been quite cold as we’ve made our way south. We just kept saying, “At least it’s not as cold as it is at home.”
  • • Did you run in a race this weekend? ~ no

 

And that’s my rundown… Have a great week!

 

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I’m linking up with Deborah at Confessions of a Mother Runner and Kim from Running on the Fly for their Weekly Run Down. Be sure to check out not only the hosts’ posts, but those of the other great bloggers joining in on the fun!

 

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