Fitness Odds and Ends

Biking on Saturday
I did my longest ride of the year on Saturday. I got up very early. I was on my bike by 5:20 am. It was just starting to get light. I decided that I would just take my sunglasses. One less thing to carry. It always take a long time to get out of DC. That’s especially true when a little over a mile from my house is the hill up Rhode Island Ave. I also decided since it was still dark to take things a little slow heading out.

There’d been a storm on Friday night and there were several limbs of trees blocking the bike path. A couple times I had to go off the path to get around them. I made very good time down the Mt. Vernon trail. I reached Mt. Vernon a little after 8. I then went down the road and turned around at Gunston Hall.

My goal was to do 60 miles. I’d hoped to add additional miles by taking the Four Mile Run trail that you pick up just south of National Airport. The problem well actually there were two problems. The most important is that this is where I ran into the wind. I just don’t ride well in wind. It really slowed me down. The other problem is it didn’t add the additional mileage I thought it would. Where the Four Mile Run trail meets up with the trail out of DC, I headed back into DC. The wind had really tired me out so I did some quick thinking and decided to head back on the Mt. Vernon Trail and turn around at National Airport.

This did the trick. I did just over 63 miles. I got back to my house around 11:30 after making a short stop to pick up something to drink. All in all I think I did pretty good. I wasn’t as prepared as I wanted to be in the morning so I probably lost about 10 minutes there. That doesn’t seem like a great deal of time but after 10 am or so the trail started to get really crowded.

I have this Friday off for the 4th. The goal is to equal if not exceed Saturday’s ride. This time it will be straight out on the W&OD Trail and I hope to leave right at 5am.

Cholesterol News
I got my cholesterol back. Some good news on the bad front and a slight disappointment on the good front. The good news on the bad front is that my bad cholesterol (LDL) went from 142 to 128. The slight disappointment is that my good went from 70 to 61. Overall my total cholesterol went from 228 to 205.

So to do a quick recap from January of 2008 my total cholesterol has gone from 230 to 205. Good cholesterol from 50 to 61. Bad cholesterol from 160 to 128.

The numbers are definitely moving in the right direction!

July Goal
I’m going to try and alter my diet. Well I think a better way of putting it is what I eat. I’m going to work with my trainer and drop out some of the bad things I’ve been eating. Today I had my last Coke for a while. I’m going to see how long I can go without having one. It also means laying off all the junk food that I eat. I don’t a great deal but it’s enough. It’s probably the reason my good cholesterol dropped.

I’m also going to increase my exercising. I’m hoping to move training days to Tuesday/Thursday. This way I’d be able to add an extra day of spinning. I’m not sure that will work. In the mean time I’m going to be adding a walk after dinner. When the weather gets too hot, I’ll probably ride the stationary bike. I’m also going to get to the gym early in training days and do some cardio before the work out. I’m hoping to loose around 4 or 5 pounds this month.