Let's See How We Feel

This morning Drew and I got up and went over to Toga (LBS) with my bike so that I could get new shoes and pedals for my bike. I tried on a couple of different pairs of shoes but ended up with a pair of Specialized shoes. I love the buckle part. I had tried on the shoes that only had velcro, but these felt a lot more secure on my foot. We decided that we would just leave my bike at the shop so that they could put the pedals on the bike, the cleats on my shoes, and I also wanted to get a second water bottle cage, so they put that on as well. I'll go tomorrow and pick it up.

After that, Drew and I headed over to his apartment to change clothes and workout. I really wanted to go for a run and Drew really wanted to go to the gym and lift, so we decided to do both things. We headed over to the reservoir and started our run. I could tell that Drew wasn't loving it right away. It was sort-of weird because a year ago, we were in the exact opposite positions. I was hating the running and this time it really wasn't his favorite thing. I asked him how he was doing about a 1/4 of the way around and got a "Fine" in response. I'm sure that the part that is hard for him is that 2 months ago he was going to the gym every day (twice a day) and would have kicked my butt while running. Now he's working 16-18 hour days and hasn't been going to the gym as much. Despite all that, we still finished the 1.6 mile loop in 15:30 (9:41 pace), which seems pretty good to me. I decided that I'd just like to keep my running around this pace and finish the sprint triathlon running portion in 30 minutes or less. I think I can do it. The good news from today is that my shins weren't bothering me at all. I'm not really sure I understand what happened yesterday, but I'm glad that it wasn't long lasting.

While we were running, there was some discussion about going to the gym and what sort-of lifting we would do. Drew said, "Let's just see how we feel." I took that to mean that he wasn't really in the mood to go to the gym and do anything. I decided that we should just go to the gym and do 4 lifts. I know that he didn't want to go and lift at the moment, but I think while we were there he started feeling better. We had each chosen one arm lift and one leg lift. I chose calf raises and curls and he chose leg extensions and bench presses.

We started off with the bench presses. I normally just lift the bar, which is what I started with. I did 10 reps at 45. The next set, Drew wanted to add some weight for me. He put on 10 pounds. I lifted it three times before asking him to take it off. I finished that set of 10 at 45 pounds. The final set he increased the weight to 50 and I did all 10 at 50 pounds.

Then we did the leg extensions. We used the Strive machine that has this egg-shaped thing that will change the tension for each set that you do based on where you move it (I am doing a horrible job of describing this). Anyway, I did all 3 sets of 10 at 70 pounds, but because the tension changed with this egg-shaped thing, they did get harder.

After that were the calf raises. I like to do them on the leg press machine. Drew wanted to do them on some other machine that I don't like as much, but I figured since it was my choice do this exercise I should choose which machine we got to use. I did the first set of 15 at 90 pounds, the second set of 15 at 110 pounds and the third set of 15 at 135 pounds. When I was done with the last set, I made a comment that it really wasn't that bad. That's when Drew added more weight to bring it up to 160 pounds and I managed to do 12 calf raises. I was actually really surprised at that and surprised at how much stronger I am getting.

Finally, we did the curls. I used 15 pound weights in each hand and did three sets of 10. I was definitely struggling by the end of each set. I wish that I could magically make my arms as strong as my legs. Although I know that my arms are getting stronger, it just seems like it's taking longer for them to get in shape.