I’ve been doing quite well with my workouts throughout the holiday weekend. Wednesday, December 21 was the first day on the trainer (see Jake’s New Toy). I “trained” again on Thursday for 40 minutes. I sprinkled in three sprints, and my heart responded by saying, “No, not gonna slow down until you get off this damn bike.”

Friday, I got out for a hike at Stony Creek with Kristi, Eric, Nick, Marty, Steve, Walter, Chili, Roxie, Dobby, and Coriander: six people, five dogs. We spent two hours hiking all over the place. I was ready to quit long before we did, but I’m really glad that we were out for as long as we were. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I also really needed it. I guess you could say that my friends took me for a much-needed walk. Here are some awesome photos from that hike:

Saturday and Sunday were travel days for Christmas with the family, so I didn’t get any exercise, but I managed to get back on schedule with a 40-minute walk along some of the streets of Mount Clemens, yesterday. Cori wasn’t quite sure she wanted to leave the apartment. I think she thought I was going to throw her back into the car for a ride to God only knows where, but she perked up when she realized that we were hitting the pavement sans driving.

Today, I took Nick’s advice of popping in a movie during my trainer workout. Since I’m still working my way through Christmas movies, I popped in Holiday Inn. It really did make it easier to get through the workout. I managed to spin for 60 minutes. I did some faster spinning at about 90 rpm, switching between an easier and a medium gear. In fact, the faster spinning felt better than the slower spinning. This is good. It was somewhat of a challenge syncing my cadence with the early-40s music, but I managed, and I realized that musicals are great for trainer workouts. The movie focuses my mind on the plot, while the music encourages me to switch it up a bit. The problem is that I don’t own very many musicals.

I had to do three sprints toward the end of the workout. To make it more challenging, and to shock my muscles into being like little rock stars and fine-tuning their craft, which just happens to be being strong and fast, I like to do sprints or simulate hills as much as I can in my quaint, little living room.

So it seems that I have a bit of a routine, and I intend to keep it up. Instead of going gung-ho on the cycling, I am going to continue alternating cycling with walking. This means that Cori and Jake get equal time. Aside from keeping the dog and bike happy, it also keeps my body happy. While I’m going through the “getting back into shape” phase, I think it’s best to give my legs rest days between trainer workouts. In the past, my legs have responded quite well to rest days, coming back much stronger for the next workout.

If I can keep this up, I’ll be ready for race season.

Let’s get one thing straight before we move on: my friend, Amanda, is a contagious person. For someone her age, she has a lot figured out. She knows how to live well. This can encompass anything from eating right to finding the good in everyone and everything. She has even realized the joy that hula hooping can bring. It was Amanda who introduced drunken hula hooping to Zik’s. I’m not sure whether drunken hula hooping was really her intention, but she did intend for everyone to have a good time doing a simple deed.

I considered getting a hula hoop, at that point, because I remembered that my cousin had told me that she lost her belly hula hooping. I can understand why. Keeping the hula hoop in an easily accessible place makes it the goto item when sudden, directionless boredom sets in. Instead of heading to the refrigerator to open the door and not see anything you want to eat, you head for the hula hoop and partake in a little hip rotation for a few minutes. It is no wonder I was thrilled to find that Amanda and Rachel had bought me a hula hoop! They brought it to our girls’ night dinner, Thursday, and I’ve been hula hooping ever since.

The greatest benefit I am experiencing, so far, is the stretching of my abdominal, lower back, and hip muscles. Hula hooping seems to alleviate much of the back pain I have been experiencing, lately. As an added bonus, it keeps my metabolism revved up since I pick up the hula hoop several times per hour.

Some Cool Hooping Sites

MayoClinic.com – Weighted hula hoops: Exercise gimmick or good idea?

Hooping.org Magazine – not “hula” hooping, but pretty related.

I took the time, last winter, to develop a broad training schedule for the year. I wasn’t aware that my laziness was causing me to follow this schedule. I just looked at the training program, today, but I am on track, nevertheless.

Under November, it says, “No training. Just do what you want when you want.” Well, I did that. I didn’t really do much, but I still did what I want when I wanted it. I went for a couple of bike rides, skied a bit, and lifted weights a couple of times. December, however, marks the beginning of getting back on track.

December through January

Season prep: Build it back up

• strength training two or three days a week
• ski

I haven’t been strength training that much, but it has been getting done. Now that I’m on Christmas break, I haven’t been to the gym at all. I did have one heck of a strength day, yesterday, when I hoisted many logs onto a wood splitter. I also attempted a few pushups. Since I have the good mind to lift with my legs, my legs also got a great workout.

I haven’t been skiing, though. I’ve only been out a few times, this year, which is a shame since the snow has been great. I have snowshoed several times, though, and that is a wonderful cardio workout, even when the effort is intended to be mild.

Tomorrow, I am most likely going to join a group of people on a snowshoe trek lasting three to five hours. I might die. It is going to be very difficult, but I am willing to give it a go. I am going to pack some food, fill my camelback, and get ready to capture some spectacular scenery with my camera.

Monday and Tuesday will be ski days, then snowshoeing will resume with a trip to Copper Harbor. A trip to Marquette for more snowshoeing, sledding, and skiing will follow, next week. Basically, the rest of my Christmas vacation will be a physical jolt to my system, preparing me for regular training throughout the rest of January.

December has pretty much been a reboot for my exercise and diet routines. Things are getting on track and there is some evidence of my success. In an effort to promote motivation, I am enacting a new rule: no internet until after exercise. There is no point in sitting on my caboose unless I’m too worn out to do anything but.

With a wind chill in the upper teens, I didn’t want to go without my gator. My lungs wouldn’t appreciate that. They like the incoming warmed air. I had to think fast. I had to work out. I…went to the SDC and weight trained for 20 minutes. I hit the sauna, showered, and made my way to dinner.

Nice save.

I decided to go skiing after church on Sunday. I packed up my things, went to Mass, and headed to the ski trail for my inaugural skate of the 2008-2009 season. I was nervous. I thought I was going to fall flat on my face. I thought it was going to be difficult and my out-of-shape body was going to rebel.

My goal was to do the green loops as a seasonal warm-up. I wanted to skate ski for two hours, but I wasn’t expecting to actually do that. I skied all the green loops and found myself gliding into the first of a three-loop series of blue trails. I tackled it. Then I tackled the other two. It was climbing up the hill on the last two loops that made me cry uncle and decide to quit when I got back to the parking lot. I headed for the trailhead and found myself gliding back onto a green loop, again. Ok, I’ll skate two of the green loops that have fun little runs. I really didn’t have to convince myself. It was fun!

I finished the last run and skated toward the trailhead and then veered right back onto another green loop. Before I knew it, I did all but two green loops a second time! Yeah, I was having fun.

When I made the entry into my training log, I found that I had finished all of these loops in one hour and fifty-five minutes. This was a record time! Not only did I manage to skate without merging my face with the snow, but I managed to do it in spectacular form with a personal record. What a great way to start a season!

My realization was that sport cycling is a critical component of my year-round training program. Just as cycling was becoming old hat and improvement had waned considerably, the time came to switch to my winter sport of cross-country skate skiing. What I’ve found over the course of the last three years, currently entering into my fourth season, is that these two sports complement each other spectacularly! They maximize the use of muscles that the other doesn’t, yet the development of these muscles is critical for moving to the next level. For example, skate skiing maximizes the use of my quads and glutes, to a much greater degree than cycling. Unlike cycling, I can’t change my form or cadence to allow for active recovery of these muscles. I have to use these muscles if I expect to glide up a hill with any speed. It is a lot of work. Come spring, my cycling suddenly shows significant improvement because of the cross-training over the winter, and vice versa. Climbing especially benefits.

While riding once every one or two weeks throughout the winter is useful for muscle memory, having a different, dominant sport in the off-season can produce drastic improvement over the winter. I’ve been forced into this method because of the weather changes in my area, but I enjoy the diversity and the rest. In the end, my body thanks me because it gets to rest chronically abused parts for a season while building up different areas. This method is good not only for performance improvement, but for minimizing the chances of an overuse injury, keeping the mind fresh, and strengthening weaknesses that could otherwise become a persistent problem.

In a nutshell, cross-training is all it is hyped up to be.

I had enough foresight to make arrangements with my friends to meet them at the Keweenaw Brewing Company on Thursday night. I had a biochemistry exam at 7:00, and I knew I would need moral support in the hour following that exam. My evening progressed to The Library to see if one of my biking friends, with whom I’ve never actually biked, was there. He was and we chatted for a bit. Then, we decided to head over to The Dee to watch a friendly game of hockey.

Every winter, some of my cycling friends rent the ice once a week to play hockey with their friends. Last night, there were about twenty-five guys, there. I took it as an opportunity to get some photos of a different sport, of course.

I was particularly interested to find out that The Dee is the “birthplace of professional hockey,” and why it is called The Dee. In 1902, James R. Dee raised funds to build the Amphidrome on the spot where Dee Stadium currently stands. Hockey history began when the first hockey game was played on December 30, 1902. That season saw a league of four teams from Houghton, Hancock, Laurium, and Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.¹ The Portage Lakes continued their success by capturing the American Championship against the Pittsburgh Victorias, and the World Championship when challenged by the Canadian Champions, the Montreal Wanderers, in 1904.

The International Hockey League began in 1904 between teams from Houghton, Calumet, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. The original IHL is not related to the current IHL. This professional hockey league attracted players from the Canadian amateur leagues and prevailed for the next three years. In 1907, with the beginning of professional hockey in Canada, many of the Canadian players moved back there to play. The IHL dissolved that year.²

In 1927, the Amphidrome burned to the ground. Once again, James Dee played a big hand in the funding for the New Amphidrome in 1928. It was rebuilt just in time for hockey season, that year.³

In 1943, the Michigan College of Mining and Technology, currently Michigan Technological University, bought the New Amphidrome and renamed it in honor James Dee.⁴ It is now affectionately known as The Dee. (There is conflicting information regarding the year of this purchase. The source web site states 1943, but the Our Hockey History Significant Dates sign at the museum at The Dee shows 1946 as the year of purchase.)

Currently, The Dee is home to the Houghton High School Hockey Team and the Portage Lake Pioneers Senior Hockey Team. An open skate and open hockey is also available as well as ice time rental, which is what my friends do each week.

1. The Birthplace of Professional Hockey – 1900s. http://www.cchockeyhistory.org/Timeline/1900s.htm.
2. The Birthplace of Professional Hockey – 1904-1907. http://www.cchockeyhistory.org/Timeline/1904-07_IHL.htm.
3. The Birthplace of Professional Hockey – 1920s. http://www.cchockeyhistory.org/Timeline/1920s.htm.
4. The Birthplace of Professional Hockey – 1940s. http://www.cchockeyhistory.org/Timeline/1940s.htm .

I haven’t been very conscientious about posting my food intake. I know that. I also know my agreement with Ali, Andrea, and Sean. I haven’t been whimping out, however. With the onset of Halloween month (yes, I just called it a month), I bought a bag of candy and have been eating it quite religiously. I also picked the few apples that grew on only one of my apple trees and baked those with nutmeg, cinnamon, brown sugar, and streusel topping made from a packet of streusel topping I had left over from a pumpkin spice bundt cake from Williams Sonoma. I can almost see Ali drooling.

So, what is a girl to do when her eating habits are less than desirable? Come on, people! This is a mountain biking blog! Yes! THAT’S IT! Very good! The girl mountain bikes!

My other weight loss method is to eat what I want and mountain bike ten hours per week. I got a great start last weekend when I rode for 3.5 hours on Saturday and 2.5 hours on Sunday. It was Heaven. The weekend was followed by a nearly 80 degree F day on Monday. I had to play hooky and go riding, instead. Now, Monday begins my week, so the counter was at zero. I was worn out from the weekend riding, but had to get out, anyway. It was just too beautiful! I rode for a whopping 70 minutes. That’s ok, because the rest of the weekend is coming along nicely:
• Tuesday: 215 minutes
• Wednesday: 75 minutes
• Thursday: off
• Friday: 180 minutes – planned
• Saturday: 60 minutes – planned
• Sunday: 40 minutes – planned – cross race.

What tops it off is that the weather is expected to be beautiful until Sunday when it rains.

That brings me to another issue: weather. The weather is heading for a cold change, and we can’t mountain bike in the winter. Sure, I can ride my mountain bike on the snow-covered roads, but our trails are converted to snowshoe/ski trails, and you really can’t ride them when there is two to three feet of snow covering them. It’s a tad bit difficult.

My plan is to continue spinning once or twice per week. I will hit the gym to weight train twice per week, so I will hop on the stationary bike then. My hardcore cardio converts to cross country skate skiing (great for working those climbing muscles), and snowshoeing when the thermometer dips too low to get a glide on my skis.

Wish me luck! I much prefer to get a lot of exercise rather than stifle my appetite.

Biking

I will probably continue to bike as my primary exercise until the snow flies in December or January. Although, with the wet days (wet and cold don’t mix well), I don’t ride, so my exercise has been waning, lately. After the snow flies, I’ll probably haul the mountain bike up to Calumet to ride the snowy roads with a friend. I’d like to do this once a week, but once or twice a month may be more realistic in the heat, er, cold of winter. I might go to a spinning class or two, as well. Our local social riding group does a series of spin classes in November and December.

Skiing

This is what makes Houghton incredibly special. Not only is there downhill skiing, telemarking, snowboarding, and God only knows what else going on, we have some of the best cross country ski trails, period. The grooming is top notch and we have miles of trails for skating and classic skiing. So, that is what I do. My primary form of exercise is skate skiing.

Snowshoeing

This is a great social sport. It’s also great strength training for your legs. It also warms you up pretty easily, although 7 below zero usually finds a way to chill you. The reason I bring that up is because zero and below usually means no-go for the skate skis, so the snowshoes come out.

Kamikaze Sledding

Tubing in the backwoods – before you know it, you’re out there for three hours bumping into trees as you slide down giant hills. Awesome.

Weight Training

I’m actually going to start weight training probably next week. I’m waiting to get over this cold. No need to spread it. I assess my cycling weaknesses and address those with my winter weight training. For example, I had a huge knot around my right shoulder blade that no one could work out. It was from mountain biking. So, I figured that strengthening my back would alleviate that issue for the next summer. I was right. I concentrated on strengthening my arms and back (whole back) and I haven’t had any back issues this year. This year, I’m going to add legs into the mix.

16 oz Curls

Ok, when you’ve got a most excellent brewery in town with $2.50 pints, how could you *not* include this into your exercise regime?

***

Today’s Menu

Breakfast
2 slices chocolate zucchini bread with butter – ~15 points

Lunch
Milkshake – 16 points

Dinner
Salad
• Lettuce, tomato, cucumber – 0 points
• 4 Morningstar Chik nuggets – 4 points
• 14 g croutons – 1 point
• ½ oz cheese – 3 points
• 3 tbsp homemade ranch – 2 points

Total POINTS: 41

Note: Um, yeah. I have chocolate zucchini bread in my fridge and I love butter on it. It’s really the only thing I put real butter on. I also wanted the milkshake. Being sick is very bad because I sit on my butt all day and I crave bad-for-you foods. When I exercise, I crave healthy foods. I better get well, soon.

The good news is that, even though I’m taking in a lot of calories, I’m taking in a considerably lesser amount because I have to post it all to the world. Ali, I think this was a great idea.