Monday, February 04, 2013

Tour de Crazy

Remember when I started spinning?

The gym where I take classes decided to host a challenge that would whip everyone back into shape after the holidays and get us all through the mid-winter blues.  We are now in the midst of the "Tour de Crazy".  It's actually called Tour de 'name of the gym', but Tour de Crazy fits much better.  Because crazy is exactly where I will be by Saturday.

The idea is to simulate the Tour de France as much as possible while only riding one hour a day for 14 days, indoors, on a stationary bike.

Which is pretty much nothing like the real Tour, but, whatever.

Today was day 10.  I have been on the bike 8 out of the last 10 days and ridden 158 miles.

One hundred fifty eight miles...that is about how far Honey drives to go to work every day.

My bum is sore.  I'm so thankful for my padded riding shorts.

Ibuprofen is not 'performance enhancing', right?

I've gotten stronger and faster over the last 10 days.  But it probably has nothing to do with the amount of Advil I've taken, right?

My appetite has increased dramatically.  I am starving all.the.time.  I totally get how Michael Phelps could eat 10,000 calories a day.

I'm losing inches, my jeans are fitting differently.  I haven't weighed though.

One day last week at the end of class I was about as spent as I had ever been and the instructor excitedly announced, "Three down, only 11 more to go!"  I decided that was a bit early to start the countdown.

I've learned that the course we are simulating is heavy on the flat lands in the beginning and then all about the Alps in the end.  So...today we started the Alps part.  I fully expect my mileage to go down since I can't ride as fast on hills as I can on flats.

We were climbing mountains in the Alps for 40 of the 56 minutes I was on the bike today.

I don't know what the Alps look like, but in my head they look just like the mountains around CBH.  It's my happy place when pretending to ride on mountains.

The tour ends Saturday, so there are 4 more days to ride because Thursday is a mandatory rest day.  And then I can wear my Tour de Crazy shirt with pride.  I love a good challenge.  Honey said that he knew I would finish because I always accomplish what I put in my mind to do.  That's fancy talk for I'm stubborn.

In all the months I've been spinning, I've never logged 200 miles in one month.  So, that's my goal for February.

In September I joined the 1000 mile challenge.  I've been logging my miles every time I ride, and when I get to 1000 I get a t shirt.  I'm really wanting to wrap that up this spring too.  My goal is to have that completed by my birthday, May 2.

What kind of work outs are you loving right now?
What is the craziest thing you've ever done for a t shirt?

1 comment:

Su said...

Workouts? It's probably best I not talk about that.

Crazy t-shirt things? Well, there was that marathon. Actually, the craziest thing was volunteering at Explore UT day, two years in a row, when we had 50K+ K-12 kids & their parents/sponsors on campus. Holy macaroni. Those are some hard-earned t-shirts.