Two Worldwide Fitness Days in One Week
The fitness communtiy enjoyed two big days this past week. On Tuesday we celebrated World Bicycle Day and on Wednesday we celebrated Global Running Day.
- World Bicycle Day:
- • Encourages riding bicycles over other modes of transportation
- • Celebrates health and well-being
- • Promotes environmental sustainability
- • Provides affordable transportation
- • Advances social inclusion while fostering a culture of peace
- Global Running Day:
- • Celebrates running
- • Promotes health and well-being
- • Fosters mental health benefits
- • Encourages active lifestyles
- • Advocates for accessibility and inclusivity
- • Promotes longevity and disease prevention
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: 29.4 miles
• Bike: Life Fitness Lifecycle GX Spin
• Average speed: 15.5 MPH
• Surface: N/A
• Elevation gain: N/A
• Start time: 6:13 AM
• Location: basement
• Weather: 64° in the basement, 46° and mostly sunny outside
• What I wore: bike shorts and sports bra
Cycling: 21.66 miles
• Bike: Salsa Warbird
• Average speed: 11.9 MPH
• Surface: gravel
• Elevation gain: 1,316 feet
• Start time: 9:53 AM
• Location: Harvest Gap loop
• Weather: 58° and sunny, climbing to 63°
• What I wore: bike shorts, s/s jersey, jacket, and fingerless gloves (took jacket off about 12 miles into my ride)
Still grinding away at mileage for the Great American Ride, I once again got up early to get some miles in on my spin bike before our gravel ride. Then after way too long, we joined the Gravel Rats for a very relaxing ride with lunch afterward at a brewery. Because of my schedule, the only church service I could fit in was at 5 PM. Yes, I could have skipped my early morning spin and gone to 7:30 AM mass, but I wouldn’t have had enough time to get home and get changed to drive all the way to where we were meeting our friends for our ride. I’m lucky to have so many mass times from which to choose.
Monday
Strength training: 1 hour of total body
Walking: 3.19 miles
• Average pace: 15.28 minute/mile
• Elevation gain: 132 feet
• Start time: 11:25 AM
• Location: neighborhood trails
• Weather: 67° and sunny, climbing to 69°
• What I wore: shorts, s/s shirt, and visor
Cycling: 21.42 miles
• Bike: Specialized Roubaix Comp
• Average speed: 14.1 MPH
• Surface: paved
• Elevation gain: 597 feet
• Start time: 3:22 PM
• Location: streets to the bike shop and the W&OD Trail Ashburn/Leesburg loop
• Weather: 74° and sunny
• What I wore: bike shorts, s/s jersey, and fingerless gloves
Having lifted and walked earlier in the day, I had planned to only ride to and from the bike shop to have Oscar readjust and tighten down my road bike’s new saddle, but the weather was too nice not to stay outside.
By the end of the day, our Dawn Patrol team had ridden 7,418 miles and had made it back to our starting point in Washington state, but we weren’t finished yet. We were still in 1st place for riding the most miles and a larger 2nd place team (11 riders to our 8) was only 635 miles behind us and could close the gap easily in the final days. Chuck begged us not to quit logging in our miles and set a new mileage goal of 8,000 miles. Challenge accepted, coach!
Tuesday
Cycling: 30.1 miles
• Bike: Life Fitness Lifecycle GX Spin
• Average speed: 15.4 MPH
• Surface: N/A
• Elevation gain: N/A
• Start time: 6:26 AM
• Location: basement
• Weather: 64° in the basement, 51° and mostly sunny outside
• What I wore: bike shorts and sports bra
Cycling: 31.04 miles
• Bike: Salsa Warbird
• Average speed: 13.6 MPH
• Surface: paved
• Elevation gain: 895 feet
• Start time: 9:55 AM
• Location: W&OD Trail
• Weather: 68° and mostly sunny, climbing to 78° and sunny
• What I wore: bike shorts, s/s jersey, and fingerless gloves
Cycling: 4.41 miles
• Bike: Specialized Roubaix Comp
• Average speed: 13.0 MPH
• Surface: paved
• Elevation gain: 194 feet
• Start time: 1:11 PM
• Location: roads to the bike shop and back
• Weather: 78° and sunny, climbing to 80°
• What I wore: bike shorts, s/s jersey, and fingerless gloves
To celebrate World Bicycle Day and to help out Team Dawn Patrol, I rode on my indoor bike while training a client and continued spinning for a while after finishing her session. Once it had warmed up a bit, I headed out onto the W&OD Trail and bumped into my friend Mary. We rode together for 10 miles before going our separate ways. Once home, I switched bikes and rode over to the bike shop for a quick adjustment and then called it a day.
Wednesday
Strength training: 1 hour of total body
Cycling: 10.1 miles
• Bike: Life Fitness Lifecycle GX Spin
• Average speed: 15.5 MPH
• Surface: N/A
• Elevation gain: N/A
• Start time: 7:58 AM
• Location: basement
• Weather: 65° in the basement, 66° and sunny outside
• What I wore: bike shorts and sports bra
Running: 1.04 mile
• Average pace: 12:54 minute/mile
• Elevation gain: 38 feet
• Start time: 4:25 PM
• Location: neighborhood trails
• Weather: 88° and sunny
• What I wore: shorts, tank top, and visor
Walking: 2.02 miles
• Average pace: 17.36 minute/mile
• Elevation gain: 37 feet
• Start time: 4:48 PM
• Location: neighborhood trails
• Weather: 87° and sunny
• What I wore: shorts, tank top, and visor
After my morning lifting session, I hopped on my spin bike for a few miles to earn the Great American Ride 600th Rail Trail Opened badge. I’m still clinging to 4th out of 416 participants place and 2nd place female. I’m not sure why/how the number of participants keeps changing. Surely people aren’t quitting or joining this late in the game.
You didn’t think I’d skip running on Global Running Day, did you? It was only a mile, it was hot, and I took walk breaks, but I ran! Of course, my legs felt like lead after so much cycling and while slowly plodding along I was reminded of how effortless running used to feel. I was happy to be running, happy that I ran in celebration of Global Running Day, but I love that my body feels so good these days and I’m not willing to risk yet another running injury just for a few months of running.
While out I bumped into my Cruisers friend Alan and we stopped to chat for a few minutes and grab a selfie. I do miss my regular contact with my Cruisers friends. Man oh man, did we run a lot of miles together and have a lot of fun over the years!
Around all that working out, I also managed to train four clients and teach a two-hour fitness machines orientation class at the 55+ gym.
Thursday
Cycling: 58 miles
• Bike: Life Fitness Lifecycle GX Spin
• Average speed: 15.3 MPH
• Surface: N/A
• Elevation gain: N/A
• Start time: 6:39 AM
• Location: basement
• Weather: 65° in the basement, 65° and cloudy outside
• What I wore: bike shorts and sports bra
Walking: 2.1 miles
• Average pace: 15:26 minute/mile
• Elevation gain: 112 feet
• Start time: 12:42 PM
• Location: neighborhood circle
• Weather: 84° and cloudy
• What I wore: shorts, s/s shirt, and visor
Gardening: 2:15
It was great virtually joining Kim for some cardio fun – she walked outside while I cycled indoors. With a beautiful day on tap, I would have loved to ride outside, but the Virginia creeper and small trees (thanks, squirrels) growing in the pachysandra on the hill in our back yard were calling my name.
Spinning requires strapping my Garmin to my wrist, filling my water bottles, and hopping on the bike. For outdoor cycling it takes about a half hour to get myself ready – pumping up my bike tires, getting all of my gadgets on my bike, filling my water bottles, tucking my hair just right under my hat before putting on my helmet, strapping on my heart rate monitor, applying sunscreen, etc. My outside rides are slower (but more fun) with hills, wind, and heat playing havoc with my speed. And then once home, I have to recharge my gadgets, wash the grime off my water bottles, blah, blah, blah. 😉
The time saved by staying on my spin bike afforded me the time to fit in a walk to keep my bones happy before bending over pulling weeds which angered my back for the next 24 hours.
My workouts earned me a Garmin World Environment Day badge which seemed appropriate for a day I worked outside in my yard.
Friday
Strength training: 1 hour of total body
Balance and stretching: 45 minutes
Cycling: 55 miles
• Bike: Life Fitness Lifecycle GX Spin
• Average speed: 15.3 MPH
• Surface: N/A
• Elevation gain: N/A
• Start time: 5:49 AM
• Location: basement
• Weather: 65° in basement, 64° and mostly clear outside
• What I wore: bike shorts and sports bra
And that’s a wrap! With a plan to ride 50 miles on the final day of the Great American Ride, I checked to make sure I was still in 4th place overall and to see how many miles I needed to move into 3rd. A 55 mile ride would put me less than a mile ahead of the current 3rd place guy so I decided to go for it; assuming, though, that he would ride later in the day and move back ahead of me. Luck was with me, he didn’t log a ride by the cutoff at midnight, and I finished 3rd place overall out of 416 participants. Dawn Patrol solidly finished in 1st place with 8,370.93 total miles to the 2nd place team’s 7,170.87 miles, and as our teammate Chuck from Florida said, “we smoked ’em.”
This ride also earned me the Great American Ride Final Day badge. Woot woot!
Just in time, my finishers medal and t-shirt arrived! I’m so happy my husband registered us for this event – even though Dawn Patrol had been competing for a few years, we hadn’t joined in on the fun in previous years. I’ll definitely be recapping this challenge, so stay tuned.
Saturday
Rest day!
Other than teaching a 2-hour fitness machines orientation class at the 55+ gym, I kept the day very chill. And even though it was a gorgeous afternoon, I opted to drive to church rather than walking. My legs thanked me for the break!
Last Week’s Blog Posts
In case you skipped checking in on my blog these past weeks, here’s what you missed…
Questions:
- • Have you competed in any similar challenges? ~ This was probably my first time competing in a challenge that lasted two months and this organized.
- • Did you do anything fun for either World Bicycle Day or Global Running Day? ~ both for me
- • Which workout did you feel was most successful this week? ~ My 1-mile run was depressingly challenging and quite the workout.
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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Way to celebrate the 2 major holidays of the week! Nice job on those cycling stats. Sometimes just a short run can feel so good. That’s what I love about running-it is always there for us in whatever way we want it.
Awesome job with all the cycling the past two months! I have done a lot of virtual challenges, more for running or even just basic fitness activity. They’re always a great motivator! I have found they can be especially tough to stay with, though, because all the motivation needs to come from within…which makes for a really sweet conquest when they conclude 😉
Woohoo! Congrats on both achievements- 3rd individual and 1st team. That sounds like a REALLY fun challenge! I’m wondering if you’re relieved it’s over or starting to think about the next thing (it seems like you enjoy these challenges and pushing yourself!)
I’m glad you ran on Global Running Day, and yes- I know that feeling. It’s amazing how hard running feels if you haven’t been doing it. Even though you’re in great shape from all the cycling and lifting, running is a whole different thing.
Thanks for the education on world bicycle day! How fun they were in the same week. I love a holiday that celebrates fitness and being active! Well done on the challenge!
Good job on that challenge!! From Jan – Apr we had a team based challenge for racking up running/walking miles. Our corporate team competed and crushed the competition for a 2nd year! Actually it sounded like an embarrassing amount of miles over the others, so maybe they have to restructure the teams or something.
Our biking community was in mourning this past week. One of the triathletes in our area was hit by a car last Saturday on a ride. The driver was coming the opposite direction and crossed the center line to hit the group of 3 riders. The other two riders survived. Very sad and tragic. As a result I think much attention was taken away from riding.
Congrats to the 3rd place! So well deserved after all your hard work!
When I saw you mentioned the Global running day I hoped (and suspected) you would do some running! But I understand your statement about not getting back to running. My husband and I talked about running the other day and I said that even if now I potentially could try running again, I’m just not interested, for that same reason (but not only). Even if my body now is much stronger than when I tried running, just the thought of navigating between injuries and potential injuries, is off-putting.
Look at all those Garmin badges! Nice job celebrating the two fitness events this week. I did not know about bicycle day, but I don’t actually ever cycle.
It’s always so amazing to see how much time you can spend on a bike! I glance at mine from time to time, but I just don’t feel like riding. I have to get out of my funk.
I’ve done challenges but nothing quite like your ride. it seems like a really fantastic event and there is so much enthusiasm surrounding it!
I’m glad you’re feeling well (besides your back) and your garden is gorgeous!