How the other half sweats

My trusty (and cheap!) gym at Columbia University is closed this week. It's not a catastrophe really; I only hit up the gym for my weekly yoga class and two weights sessions each week. While I have a plan for dealing with the yoga -- take a short break and then start taking lessons at my instructor's house -- I was forced to come up with a different solution for the weight lifting sessions.

Fortunately, I had a couple one-week trial memberships to two of the fancier gyms in the city. I managed to lose the one for Equinox but I had safely stashed the one for the Reebok Sports Center in my wallet months ago. (It came out of my NYCC century ride registration packet.) I dug it out, called the number on the card and set up an appointment for yesterday after work.

I anticipated a full dog and poney show and a pretty aggressive appeal to join, but it was fairly low key. They just gave me a pass, a map of all six floors (!!) and a schedule for the 150+ weekly classes. Oh, and they did give me an additional paper with membership prices on it. The monthly membership (just under $200) is a little more than I pay for a full school year of access to Columbia's gym. I actually thought it would be worse, but it turns out the real kicker is the "initiation fee". I can't help but think of the cost of joining some exclusive frat or sorority in college when I think of this gym. We're talking $1200 -- for the priviledge of joining!!

There's no denying the gym is beautiful and insanely spatious, however. I'm always intimidated by the trappings of wealth, but I was so ridiculously uncomfortable in this place. I took the elevator to the sixth floor and started working my way down till I found the equipment I needed. It ended up being a room the size of all the three tiny rooms at Columbia in one (and mind you this was repeated on several floors).

There were probably no more than 6 people in the room when I walked in and all of them were men. Worse yet, I swear they were all staring at me. Since this is getting long, I'll relate my experience with the staring folks later. For now, let me just say this gym is ludicrous and I'm not going to let these rich folk intimidate me out of making good use of my free week there.

And on the theme of saying good things about my workouts, I busted that training goal of leg pressing 130 lbs. My glutes are crazy sore today, but the satisfaction of having lifted 160 lbs lives on!

The holidays are taking a toll

I'm going to take a minute here just to whine a little. It's great to have lots of fun things to do during the holidays -- people to see, parties to attend, family to visit -- but it's really cramping my triathlon style and it's definitely killing my blog.

I spent this past weekend in my hometown with my parents. The holiday weekend fell over the end of my "prep" period, requiring 8.5 hrs of training a week, and the beginning of my "base 1" period, which requires 10 hrs of training. Meanwhile, there's not a pool or a bike trainer in sight. So I resigned myself to running. I actually ran roughly 16.5 miles that weekend and I can say with utter certainty that it sucked.

My body still hates to run, and running sans rest days does NOT help. My parents also live on top of one long, steep hill which ends each run in utter agony. If I were in a positive mood I'd refer to this hill as "icing on the cake", but I'm more inclined at the moment to describe it as hell.

Ok, whining done. The upside is, I'm still getting the hours of training in, even if I'm not really getting the blog posts done.

These shorts were made for riding, and that's just what the'll do

Yesterday as I spinned my way through another bike workout, I noticed how uncomfortable my bike seat was. My bike seat hasn't really bugged me much in the past (minus the occasional saddle sores, which I probably should not discuss publicly), so I'm guessing this was the inevitable sign that my padded cycling shorts are getting worn out. That little shammy just doesn't have the fluffy tenderness it once did, sadly.

This got me to thinking...how many miles have these shorts travelled?? Well, this is going to sound insane, but when I had to replace my chain late last summer, I calculated that I'd put over 2000 miles on my bike since it was purchased in Feb of 2005. I bought my shorts the same day I bought the bike and I've worn them for every single ride minus my actual races. Since the chain was swapped out, I've logged many more miles. I don't care to count the actual number cause I really don't like to think I've been wearing anything so close to my body for thousands of miles.

I'm a little disturbed frankly...and I need some new shorts...

Why yoga counts

I'm now in the middle of the third week on my training plan, and so far, so good. In commencing my official training, I did face a few moral conundrums that my bible couldn't answer. None were more challenging than whether yoga class should count toward my weekly training hours.

After collecting the applicable evidence (namely the ability of my weekly Iyengar class to make me sore after each and every class) I decided that yes, indeed, for this triathlete, yoga counts. Besides, I thought this soul-searching wasn't worth agonizing over for too long given that I only had two weeks of yoga class left when my training began. Of course, now my yoga instructor has invited me to lessons at her house (presumably because she recognizes the yogi inside me -- or at least that's what I tell myself).

Regardless, I'm pretty sure I'm going to continue to count yoga time as training time. Any time you are levitating off the ground while simultaneously placing your knee behind your shoulder, that should count for something! Here's a picture of the pose we were attempting in our last class, called Eka Hasta Bhujasana. I can't claim that my pose looked exactly like the picture, but I can certainly attest to the stiffness in my arms and hips yesterday. Other pain inducers included bhujapidasana (saying that one is about as difficult as performing it) and paripurna navasana.

That class was about as tough as my first-ever 75 min run on Sunday. Yes, strike up the band -- I ran for 75 relatively pain-free minutes this past weekend. But back to my point -- yoga is hardcore and it counts, dammit!

The other weight training

Numbers, numbers, numbers. Training for a triathlon is full of numbers. Goals, targets, zones, distances, paces and now, weight and percent body fat. I started this by deciding that I had to weigh 135 lbs in order to run as fast as I want to. That's not a dramatic a weight loss for me -- about 7 pounds. Given that I've lost about 10 pounds from when all this triathlon madness began, that doesn't seem so tough, right??

But nothing is ever easy and isn't each pound supposed to be harder than the last? Not to mention, skinny just isn't in my genes. When I look around my family I see exactly zero people you'd be tempted to call "skinny" and quite a few you'd call, to avoid more negative terms, "big-boned". And yet, taking the fatalistic view and just giving up seems like a cop out.

So recently I took a body composition test during a "health fair" at work. The nice lady told me that 26% of my body mass is fat. Mmm mmm. Turns out body composition is a popular test among triathletes, but all the other female tri bloggers seem to be in the teens! I can't even imagine what I'd look like at 15% body fat. I would certainly not look like the person I think of as me, and I rather like me.

So what is my aspiration? To run fast. To be low risk for injuries. And to be the curviest fast girl out on the course!

Beyond training

Yesterday morning I woke up at 6:15 a.m. to go for a swim. The girlfriend and I stepped out the door in the pitch black and were hit by some of the first really cold air of the season. Even though I knew I wouldn't, I had a strong desire to climb back into that warm bed with the fluffy down comforter just calling my name.

When we turned the corner, however, I looked straight down the street to see a gigantic full moon across the Hudson slowly sinking into the lights of New Jersey. I was completely mesmerized by that sight - and it only got better as the George Washington Bridge, all lit up, came into view.

Not to be all nostalgic, but I would never had gotten that amazing glimpse if it wasn't for my silly obsession with this activity -- lord knows I would certainly have been in bed yesterday at 6:15.

The same has certainly been true of biking. Anyone who really wants to be intoxicated by the idea of the size and grandeur of Manhattan needs to see it from the George Washington Bridge the day after a major rain storm has cleaned all the smog and haze out of the air. The gray buildings stand in amazing relief against a blue sky decorated with innocent, puffy clouds. And yet, I have not a single picture of these things to share with you. I guess you'll just have to venture out there on your own!

More equipment failure

While this equipment failure isn't nearly as outrageous as my bike gloves, I still find it noteworthy. Perhaps rules of etiquette dictate that one should not put a picture of one's used sports bra on a web site for the world to see. But, all rules were meant to be broken.

So this picture is basically just the back of my extremely tired and worn out Moving Comfort Fiona Bra. I put a lot of miles on this thing, so I am certainly not disappointed in its performance. Yes, that unusual color on the clasps is rust. That's what happens when you swim repeatedly in salt water in a bra with metal clasps. And if you're eyes are extremely well trained (sorry the picture's a little blurry but I didn't have the patience to take another) you'll notice the bottom bracket is broken. I think I can safely say I used this thing to the end of its life.

While the title of this post is "equipment failure", I can't help but say that this bra is a miracle. I had resorted to always wearing three "sports" bras for running when I met this beauty. The fact that it was introduced to me by a salesMAN in the Boulder Fleet Feet, is no less miraculous.

The angst I hold in this case is for the stores of New York City. This bra is already expensive - $40 - without having to pay for shipping after ordering it online. I couldn't find this bra after questioning countless salesman in sporting goods and running stores. Not one of the buyers for these stores seem to think that women with anything over a B cup like to run. In a city large enough to find a market for just about every hair-brained product ever created, something so simple as a sports bra for C and D cup women is impossible to find??

Ok, I feel better now...