Beards, Barbells, and Beer

[DrBdan]

Sept 8, 2021

My son is back to school so I should have a bit more time to train. On Wed/Thurs/Fri my plan is to do something first thing after I drop my girls at daycare and son at school. I have a meeting everyday at 9:45 so it gives me about 45 minutes. On Mon/Tues I'll probably try to do some quick DB lifting while the girls nap.

Today did a bike ride. Covered 17.63 km in 45:14. Avg speed was 23.4 km/h and avg HR was 135 BPM. Felt pretty good today, biking earlier in the day probably helps with that. Continuing to work my way up to doing a loop around the outside of Milton. I thought it would be cool to do for my birthday but that's coming up this week which is probably too soon since the whole loop is close to 30 km and today was my longest ride yet. So my goal is to do it before Hallowe'en since the weather in October is cool but still pleasant here.

My weight is still around 200 but that's a good achievement because from mid-Augustt to mid-September covers my wife's birthday, my anniversary, my birthday, and whatever random "end of summer/back to school" things we do. So as such I've had cake multiple times, ice cream multiple times, and will be having more treats this coming weekend. So I'm happy that my current diet is doing a good job of keeping my weight stable and hopefully after that I get back to dropping a few pounds.

 

[DrBdan]

Your body is changing brah! More muscles and what not probably. Great job!

I got into biking this year too. Never thought I’d ever like cardio! Stay safe out there!

Ya probably re-building more muscle on my legs. My legs have always built muscle more easily than my upper body, as evidenced (in the past) by my weak bench compared to squat/deadlift.

I used to bike a tonne as a teenager and in my university years. I'd forgotten how much I like the freedom of just tooling around town on my bike. Thankfully a lot of my town is pretty new so a lot of the roads have bike lanes!

 

[auger38]

That smart city they’re supposed to be building around Barrie is going to be sweet for cyclists!

 

[DrBdan]

That smart city they’re supposed to be building around Barrie is going to be sweet for cyclists!

I hadn't heard of that but just looked it up and it sounds awesome. Cool to see a city making long-term smart plans.

Thurs Sept 9, 2021

Did some jumping jacks and dynamic stretching to warm-up. Also did some light exercises (OHP, curls, shoulder raises, rear delt raises) with 3lb DBs.

- DB Overhead Press
10x10
15x10
20x10
20x10
20x10

- DB Two-arm rows
10x10
15x10
20x10
20x10
20x10

- Planks
45 seconds
30 seconds

Since I'm limited in the weight that I can use I'm going to do everything higher rep. Probably won't do much for lower body since they are getting hit by all the biking.

Fri Sept 10, 2021

My wife and I went to the local community center to vote in the advance polls for our upcoming federal election. I threw my bike in the trunk and after did a bunch of laps around the parking lot before I had to call into a meeting at 9:45. I planned to snake my way home after the meeting but was reminded that I had another meeting at 10:15 so I had to zoom straight home. While i was in the meeting I muted myself and messed around on the monkey bars behind the community center. I need lots more practice before the Spartan Race in October.

I paused my cycling app for the meeting and forgot to turn it back on until I was halfway home and then forgot to turn off my Fitbit at home. But I think it was roughly 8km in about 18 minutes with an average HR around 130 BPM. The ride home was mostly downhill so my average speed was 29.6 km/h, a PR.

 

[DrBdan]

Wed Sept 15, 2021

I lost my mind this morning and decided to bike up the mountain near me to Rattlesnake Point Conservation Area. Google told me it would take about 20 minutes which obviously didn't take into account the fact that it's a big goddamn hill. Heading up the main roads to the base of the hill is an elevation gain of about 150m and then up the actual mountain is about 200m but over a much shorter distance. It actually gets really steep and I had to get off and walk part of the way. Luckily the sideroad I took is closed to traffic for some construction so only a few local drivers went by.

Coming down I took a different road that is actually even more steep and winding and at a few points my wheels were skidding (this is on a paved road too) which was a bit freaky. For the last part which was completely straight I just let the brakes go and according to my app I got up to 49 km/h! After that the rest of the ride home actually felt pretty easy.

In the end it was my longest ride covering 18.82 km in 58:09. Avg speed was 19.4 km/h and avg HR was 139 BPM. Looking at the chart on my Fitbit my HR was up around 170 BPM when I was doing the climb, then it dropped (while walking), the back to 165ish while I was finishing the climb (which was less steep but still hilly). Overall I'm proud that I did it and definitely see it as a challenge to conquer. I think it would be awesome to be able to bike all the way up without stopping but I might run out of good weather before I get that in shape.

Fri Sept 17, 2021

Went for a more tame ride today. Biked up to the community center with the outdoor gym, did some laps around the parking lots and then paused to do chins while I called into a meeting. Then zoomed home. Ride was 13.36 km in 34:24, avg speed of 23.3 kmh, avg HR was 130 BPM

Chins: 1/1/1, 10 sets of 2. One set of 4. then went across the monkey bars twice.

 

[vision1]

Did you move out of Toronto?
Probably some great biking up by Milton.

 

[DrBdan]

Did you move out of Toronto?
Probably some great biking up by Milton.

Yep, moved last June. We needed more space and couldn't afford it in Toronto. I haven't actually tried biking anywhere here (other than roads) but have taken a number of hikes and there are some beautiful places to go.

 

[DrBdan]

In other news I took my son to Chudleigh's (apple orchard) the other day and tweaked my knee while we were jumping around a hay bale maze. It was really stiff yesterday but feels a lot better today. I'm gonna try a short bike ride this afternoon to see how it feels. If it's not happy I'll cut it short and do some weights and try again tomorrow.

Weight is down slightly to 197/198. Most notably my morning weight hasn't been over 200 in about 10 days so I think this is a legit loss of a pound or two.

 

[DrBdan]

Thurs Sept 23, 2021

Didn't have time for a bike ride this afternoon so did weights after the kids were asleep. Knee feels mostly okay today so later I'm going to bike to the hardware store to buy some concrete screws. exciting!

- Push-ups: 1/2/3/4/5/5/5/5/5

- DB rows (each side)
10x10
15x10
20x10
25x10
30x10
30x10
30x10
30x10
30x10

Everything felt pretty easy. 5 push-ups were moderate effort about a month ago so there's improvement even though I'm a weak little kitty these days.

 

[DrBdan]

I started using a simple workout tracker on my phone so I'm not sure how often I'll log here. I've done a few more push-up/DB workouts over the last couple weeks. I'm up to 5 sets of 7 push-ups and 5 sets of 12 reps @ 35 lb for DB rows. I also added in some isolation work for fun. My goal for now is to keep increasing the reps on the push-ups. At some point I won't be able to increase every set by one rep every workout at which point I'll probably add a 6th set to make up any missed reps. Or if the reps get high enough I'll figure out how to add weight (books in a snug backpack maybe?). For DB rows my powerblocks go up to 50 lb and my plan is to do 8, 10, 12 reps and then increase by 5 lb. I feel like I will quickly get up to 50 lb with hose.

I've been a bit busy so have only done one bike ride/week recently. I'm not sure if I'll be able to hit my goal of biking around all of Milton before the weather gets too cold. I could probably just do it whenever but I want to build up to it since i think it will be close to 30km and my longest ride so far is 18k I think.

Once weather gets too cold and/or snowy to bike I'll probably switch to lifting 3 days/week and will add in some sort of DB squats or other lower body lifts.

Last weekend was my son's 5th birthday so my weight went up a bit but still didn't break 200 so hurray for that. Back down to 198 after a few days of regular eating.

Finally, decided to delay the Spartan race to next year. My discount code (for having our race cancelled last year) is good until the end of the year and next year's schedule will be out shortly. The race will likely be in June which means I get stronger over the winter and then re-build my cardio in the Spring before the race. The Fall race is in two weeks and I don't think I'm ready to give a good effort right now. Summertime was too inconsistent.

 

[DrBdan]

Still lifting and biking. Lifiting workout yesterday was 5 sets of 14 push-ups which was tough. 5 sets of 8 with 50 lb for DB rows. My DBs max at 50 so now it's just adding more reps until it starts feeling pointless.

I haven't been biking quite as much but my last two were my longest. Had to run some errands on Friday so I biked around town, 20.5km. Today I wanted to bike to the north-most road but there was construction going over the highway so I cut it short. My mapped out route was 22km and the shortened route was about 20 instead.

Weight is basically 199. It was down a bit but having Hallowe'en candy in the house is hard to resist. And my mother-in-law brought an entire cake for dessert on Sunday because that's how she rolls, lol.

 

[DrBdan]

The last few weeks my girls have been fighting colds so we've all been sleeping like crap. So I've been lifting in the evening less, last week tried 5 sets of 14 again for push-ups and failed a few reps in the last two sets. Didn't do rows but did chins at the park while biking, got up to 10 sets of 3. Tried 10 sets of 4 today and failed some reps but felt better than expected. My legs were pretty dead today but still put in the work at least.

Weight is back up to 201ish after eating too much Halloween candy and birthday cake (my father-in-law's birthday is Halloween so doublle celebration!).

 

[DrBdan]

Finally back at it. Did push-ups and rows last night which felt good but dropped back to sets of 10 for push-ups.

Went for what was probably my last bike ride this morning. Now that the winter weather is coming the wind off of the Niagara Escarpment is getting a bit rough. It was sunny and not too cold this morning but the wind was brisk and really slowed me down, making it somewhat unenjoyable. I'm not sure what I'll do for cardio over the winter. I might just get bundled up and go for walks to at least get some movement in. I'll add DB squats to my liting since I won't feel the need to reserve my limited energy for biking.

 

[DrBdan]

In other news, Spartan Race announced that the spring race for the Toronto-area is going to be in May this year which is good because last year it was in June on Fathers Day which was a bit inconvenient. My friend and I still have 100% off codes from last year's cancelled race so we can sign up for this one and fingers crossed it won't be cancelled (they did a race north of Toronto in October and things should hopefully be better by May!!)

 

[DrBdan]

Happy New Year if anyone is still hanging around.

Signed up for the Spartan Sprint before my codes expired so now have pretty much 5 months to get in good enough shape to not die. It's hard right now because schools are closed here in Ontario again so my son is home all the time. I was super busy and got sick before Xmas (not covid, thankfully) so haven't done weights about a month. It doesn't help that my girls have been pushing their bedtime back so often one isn't asleep until 9pm which leaves very little time for chores, prepping for the next day, lifting, and relaxing. Excuses, excuses.

Anyway hope everyone is safe and healthy.

 

[Fahcough]

How many obstacles?
Love those races

 

[DrBdan]

How many obstacles?
Love those races

It's 25 obstacles and the course is about 8k. The hardest part is that this one is at a ski hill and when I did the race in 2018 it included going up and down the hill 5 times. The longest jogging section is probably less than 2k around a small lake.

I loved my first time in 2018 and really wanted to do it again because we could have gone a lot faster. I was concerned about burning myself out and my friend was hunover so we paced ourselves. However my twins being born early in 2019 and then covid in 2020 and 2021 have delayed my 2nd try. Hopefully this year works out. I've got about 4 months to get back in shape.

 

[Fahcough]

It's 25 obstacles and the course is about 8k. The hardest part is that this one is at a ski hill and when I did the race in 2018 it included going up and down the hill 5 times. The longest jogging section is probably less than 2k around a small lake.

I loved my first time in 2018 and really wanted to do it again because we could have gone a lot faster. I was concerned about burning myself out and my friend was hunover so we paced ourselves. However my twins being born early in 2019 and then covid in 2020 and 2021 have delayed my 2nd try. Hopefully this year works out. I've got about 4 months to get back in shape.

So hard to train for paced explosive endurance lol. You won't even push your own body that hard. Running half a mile in a mud ditch with 2 ft of water, legs feel like 30 lb logs. Just to do hanging rope net across a pit.

 

[DrBdan]

So hard to train for paced explosive endurance lol. You won't even push your own body that hard. Running half a mile in a mud ditch with 2 ft of water, legs feel like 30 lb logs. Just to do hanging rope net across a pit.

Ya I did some research in 2018 and all the advice I found was basically "run a lot" so that's what I did. I ran 5k a few times/week (in addition to playing hockey) and did lots of chins and dips since most of the obstacles involve upper body stuff. I was pretty proud that the only obstacle I failed was the multi-rig (which has rings, bars, and other stuff swing from) which was toward the end. I actually crushed the monkey bars and rope climb which I thought would tough since I couldn't actually practice them. But a shit-ton of chins got the job done.

 

[Fahcough]

Ya I did some research in 2018 and all the advice I found was basically "run a lot" so that's what I did. I ran 5k a few times/week (in addition to playing hockey) and did lots of chins and dips since most of the obstacles involve upper body stuff. I was pretty proud that the only obstacle I failed was the multi-rig (which has rings, bars, and other stuff swing from) which was toward the end. I actually crushed the monkey bars and rope climb which I thought would tough since I couldn't actually practice them. But a shit-ton of chins got the job done.

Run alot and when you're about to puke, start running with 10 lb weights on your feet.

I started signing up for the earliest waves outside of national competitions. Those guys take off at 6-6:30am. Usually attempt the 8am wave. Made a mistake and did a 10:30 once. Horrible idea, I spent so much time walking behind huge groups of turtles blocking entire trails, every obstacle was bottle necked with a 20 minute wait time, and the trails were stomped down into muck. It was hard enough running that long, but stopping and completely catching breath in line only to start again was harder than just going nonstop.