Eric's Strength Challenge/Spinervals Day 31

New Year's Eve.

I started the day the way anyone would. I got up at 0520, made some coffee, ate 1/2 a banana, and took a bunch of food and honey stingers downstairs to my bike. By 0540, I had started the Hardcore 100.

I'd done the Hardcore 100 one other time, prior to IM Florida, on a Saturday morning when Margit had a swim meet and I couldn't get out and do a long ride on the road. It was a little harder than I had expected to spend that long on the trainer. So I was prepared for it to be difficult. Still, starting in what still seemed like the middle of the night and being a little stressed out that I was kind of abandoning the family for the entire morning was a little stressful.

The workout starts off with a lot of SR15 work, which is good because it is a long day in the saddle. About an hour in, a stray cat came to our back slider and started antagonizing one of our cats so I had to get off very briefly to encourage it to leave. I also hit the bathroom. Then it was right back on the first bike. I was watching Facebook and waiting for the strength training workout to come in, and when it did, it was the 100 sit-ups and 100 pushups we knew were coming.

So I formulated a plan. I knew there was no way that I would want to do 100 sit-ups and 100 push-ups after finishing the hard core 100, so starting with 2nd break I used the 3 minute break to d0 20 sit-up, 20 push-ups, and meditate for 90 seconds. I know the idea of me meditating probably bring tears of laughter to everyone's eyes, but I actually do after long workouts sometimes sit down, close my eyes and just unfocus.

In this case I was simply trying to bring my heart rate down and allow my muscles to relax. The truth was that I was really feeling this workout and I wanted to actually give it a good showing.

Around the 4th hour parts of my butt cheeks started to get a little irritated and I did what I could to keep moving around on the saddle.

By the last hour, I was really, really looking forward to the soon being over.

And then I got to the end, hopped off the bike, jammed my way through 40 more sit-ups and push-ups and finished up Eric's challenge!

Let me say that the challenge was very good for me. I needed it.