My bammy hurts

I never realized how easy I had it buying tights a couple years ago. MEC had some with a wind resistant layer on the front of the legs at a reasonable price. Large wasn't large enough, so an XL has lasted me 2 years of lots of running, and a bit of biking. Lots of running for me, anyways, for some of you it wouldn't even be a warmup.

Cut to this year. Can't find those tights. Tried several different kinds, and didn't like any of them. Trying on tights is a pain, and I should put it down as core exercise. Finally got down to two different kinds, both large. One pair was a bit too big and baggy while getting perilously close to looking like long underwear, and the other fit perfectly except for a brutally tight elastic waistband. It was so tight I could barely get it over my butt, and once there I couldn't breath. Even with the string all the way out. So, medium of one, and xl of the other. The medium didn't cover my butt, and the XL was slightly baggier than I prefer, especially around the lower calves, but the waist is ok. Snug, but I'm not going to go up to a xxl, thank you very much. Technically, these are skiers pants, so they should be good in the cold. Plus it gives me incentive to continue to work on losing more of the insulation hiding my six pack.

Katie's spin session went great. 2 hrs. Lots of cadence drills, and no one leg drill. Part way through I went through a brief time where my bammy was getting really tired. That's the area between my butt and my hams. Right now there is a bit of flab in there, and it gets shook around at higher rpm rates. I've really been concentrating on trying to get to an even spin, and that means using muscles that haven't been used as much. Like my butt and bammy. (I didn't come up with that name, Julie did.)

Then change and out for a 30 minute run along the Bow River. East this time. I got to 16th street, then turned around. At first I was staying with 3 other people from class. They were chatchatchat, and my heart rate and breathing were steadily going upupup. I backed off when I hit 156 bpm, and was starting to gasp. I settled in about 142 bpm, breathing well. My run wasn't as good as Wed, but I was feeling not too bad. A little tired, and not quite as smooth. But it was a beautiful day out, sunny and maybe 4 C or so. 

I've always hated going into mapmyrun to figure out how far I've gone. And yes, I'm too cheap to buy a Garmin just yet. Last night as I was playing around in Google Earth, I found a path drawing tool. This isn't fancy, but does what I want. Here's a screen shot of today's run.

At the very end I slowed down to an easy jog, and still made it back in 30 minutes. For me, a 5K run in 30 minutes is very fast, probably a bit faster than I should have gone. I'm feeling it a bit in my legs. Just a bit, but I've got a massage tomorrow, so all will be good, and next week is an easy week, so I'm told.

Then Chris led us through some core. Ooooooooooo. My core is sore. I didn't note the exact starting time, but I'm pretty sure this was 30 minutes. It felt like an eternity. There wasn't nearly enough lying on the mat in a sweaty heap breathing hard time for me. One of the girls from class came a little bit late, but rode through our run, and through our core. Maybe I should try that, but I somehow don't think I'd get away with it.

Oh, and the cupcakes this week were chocolate with real cherries inside. Very yummy. You guys don't know what you're missing!

The current book is "Filthy Lucre, Economics for people who hate capitalism", by Joseph Heath. He takes a look at some of the economic fallacies held by left AND right wing people. His writing is engaging and his examples are easy to follow. He does a good job explaining the underlying economic principles, then notes where or how they are wrong. It's pretty interesting considering that he pokes holes into something that was treated as gospel in my Macroeconomics course. It's brand new, uses some Canadian examples (Take THAT Jack Layton!) but mostly points out how people go along with faulty reasoning when they like the results. 

Weekly Summary

Swim 1.5 hr

Bike 5.0 hr

Run 1.75 hr

Walk 1.5 hr

Core 4.25 hr

Total 14.0 hrs