Thursday random stuff

Gym continues – possibly my longest streak of gym attendance for a while. The Fitbod app continues to be useful (again, not an ad. Just stuff I use), which may be part of it. Things I like: the ability to change exercises on the fly – the gym was busy the other evening and there were no weights benches free, so I changed the seated stuff to standing variations. If something doesn’t appeal, I can change it to something else that is more interesting/less uncomfortable (Supermans hurt my leg, for example). I also like that I can check what muscle groups I’m covering in the workout vs what muscle groups are relatively fresh (not my quads. Never my quads!) and make sure that I’m getting a reasonable spread of exercises. I’m not doing upper vs lower and so on – I’m looking for all-round fitness and, frankly, my legs (other than hamstrings) get a fair workout just from riding. The app is a bit like having a personal trainer on tap, to mix things up.

I’m watching what I eat again, with a bit more discipline. Eating lower carb, for various health-related reasons. I should have done this some time ago, although it’s proving as awkward to get the balance right with cycling as you might think. Tentatively, I think I have to fuel rides from the outset (instead of taking on carbs after a couple of hours) – it worked ok last Sunday, for a given value of ok. I’m following another app for this, with a group thing – because I know I stick to things better if I think I’m accountable to someone else. I’m old enough to have given up trying to change my personality and instead focus on working with/around it.

20ok ride this weekend, since I figure I should get in a metric double century before reading for the imperial double in three weeks …

Random check in

Still here, still riding. I’m now experimenting with Zwift workouts again, as their plans have been updated to be somewhat more adaptive to real world issues, and are a bit more realistic in time commitments. Also re-starting gym workouts, as I’m finding Fitbod’s (also adaptive) workouts to be interesting (again, not sponsored, just something I like using).

Planning to ride StP again this year, and eyeing the remaining 5 weeks with a bit of trepidation.