Week 11: bike commuting!

Monday BIKE COMMUTE! 5x5 and HIIT
Tuesday Elliptical 15 min, treadmill 15 min brisk, SWIM 40' 1600y, BIKE COMMUTE 2 miles
Wednesday BIKE COMMUTE, 10' ellip at PT, 5x5 session, walk 1.8 miles
Thursday SWIM 40 1650 yards, BIKE COMMUTE, walk 3.3 miles
Friday 10' elliptical and 2 miles walking
Saturday 4 miles walking
Sunday BIKE 1hr and 14 miles, 2.8 mile walk


Monday was a gorgeously warm day, up to 70F! Biking in felt wonderful, biking home even more so. No issues at all with hip, hitting bumps and standing on the pedals feels better than it did a few weeks ago but I'm still limiting it. I was amused by all the changes that have occurred on my route in the past 11 weeks. TGA has a lane change at the Magnolia intersection, the MoBot building is taking shape (a modern shape, unfortunately), and the old Kaufmaff Heating building is under remod. I finally set up the weight bench I got in my swap with TV. I was waiting to clear some space for it, but enough waiting. It took some figuring, and I don't have it all figured yet. But I got to use my ratchet set :)  I found a 5x5 Stronglifts app (5 sets of 5 reps with simple bar exercises) and I also found a 30 days of HIIT guide. So I did both today, see how that feels tomorrow! Week 2 day 1 of the Keto experiment. Today I got 66g carbs, -18 for fiber. Felt OK.

Tuesday is another gorgeous day. And what a morning. First off I slept awful last night. Didn't fall asleep sound until after midnight. When the alarm went off at 4:45am it was too soon. Not sure why I kept waking up? Too much phone before bed? Too much activity? (Don't think so, I've biked on trainer before bed). Kombucha with caffeine? Dunno. I made it to the gym at 6:51 which is 10 mins earlier than expected. Elliptical, backwards walking on treadmill, brisk 15 mins on treadmill, then swim -- longest distance and time yet! Left gym barely on time, hit traffic all the way out to Dr L and I was 5-10 mins LATE. Stress. For the 3rd week in a row, I was bottom of the sign-in list of patients, Dr L said "we've seen 24 people so far, started at 5am". Compared to what I've done since 5am....So on top of being late, I forgot to bring in my 'Dr L' change of clothes into the gym but I was wearing leggings and I hadn't shaved, so I hoped this was OK. Nope, he had me change in to a "borrowable" pair of running shorts. Nuts. Good news -- I'm maintaining and can move to every 2 weeks!! Awesome hip flexor ROM, he worked on the hip capsule (under surgery site) and I was done. Running so late, it was now 10am. Drove to FP, missed a turn, drove through the Muny lot and thought I should just park there because who knows my usual FoPa parking could be full this late in the day. Ugh, nope, construction blocked all the spots. And by this time I had consumed most of my 1L of water and I HAD TO PEE. And DaveK back home got a text about all this when he asked how my day was going. In good news, I held to my 10am (16 hrs) goal, had a 500 meal, and I'm feeling good. At this rate, I can stop doing weekly updates, go back to daily?

Wednesday PT, did elliptical instead of bike because I planned to bike commute later. Didn't get much walking in, but did get my 15 stair flights. All PT exercises felt easy, so JB is going to revamp my list for Friday. Nice December 1st coincidence :)

Thursday It only occurred to me as I typed it that I was 20 yards away from 1 mile!!! Can I call it a mile anyway?! That was a November goal...my watch read 1700 but it stumbles on kick board laps. I skipped the elliptical and walked the dog instead for 1.3 miles this morning. Figured I'd be indoors when the weather started to get worse and this morning was calm and quiet and relatively warm. I arrived early for the swim and the master's class was still going. Anton got me into the 5th lane, the last lane where the classes are usually held. There was one other head-phone wearing swimming with a super wide form and a tendency to swim towards the middle of the lane. We made contact a few times, one instance he contacted twice -- hand and foot!On top of that, this is the worst lane to swim in at this pool. I'm not sure of the physics behind it, but something about the L-shaped area. Maybe it focuses waves like a narrowing of a river or channel? And the wall that appears half way into the lane, if you're trending towards the lane line you'll hit your right hand into the wall! And how do I know this....? I rarely swim in this lane, and I can recall a swim years ago, probably 2012, when I was swimming with an ankle injury and pulled a long 2-3k yard swim. Partway into my swim, we got a 3rd swimmer, circled until Mr Headphones finished. With 3 of us I pulled more than I planned on doing so I could keep a consistent pace. In the end, my back isn't happy. Not sure if it's the swim or the 5x5 weights last night. (5 sets of 5 reps of 50lb squat and 45lb overhead press). Hip feeling good, but realized this morning that I don't feel muscular pain or fatigue like JB warns me about. She says that's OK, but other pain isn't. Is my hip flexor pain considered "muscle pain"?  Good question for tomorrow. My hip flexor pain is getting better, but not as fast as I'd like it to.

The rest of the week -- I'm writing this up over a week afterwards, week 12 isn't even a draft post yet.
We had some gorgeous weather and I got out to bike in TGP for a hour on Sunday. See this coincided with a keto induction, I think that distraction and energy sap killed off my chattiness :)