Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Sucking In Seattle

I know that I'll get no sympathy from my bloggy friends living in the frozen north or the mountainous west, but Houston weather sucks donkey balls right now and has for the last three weeks. Rain, cold, fog, more rain, more cold, more fog. It's like living in London or Seattle, only colder and without the stuff like the mountains, the Puget Sound, the castles or the funny accents.
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Yeah, this is what my pool in South Texas looks like right now. (That pool is actually full of little kids tearing it up, back and forth in the lanes, but they're going so fast and the exposure is so slow that you can't see them. Note, the immobile grownups are visible and barely even blurred.) I have been devout in my religious devotion to the pool, notwithstanding the cold. Bumblebee wannabees cannot progress without attacking their limiters--and this is one of mine.
Uhm . . . shrinkage? Yeah. I hope it's not permanent.
I've got my results back from the bike test at Trivantage.
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I'll give the details after Dr. Endurance goes over them with me, but suffice it to say that the weather is not the only thing in Houston sucking donkey balls right now.
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That huge sucking sound that you hear? That's me. Apparently, if I purchase a time machine so as to go backwards in time rather than attempting to maintain any forward velocity, I might achieve a heartrate approriate to base training.
So I did the only logical thing a sucky bike rider can do--I signed up for the Triple Bypass, 120 miles and over 10,000 feet of elevation gain over three Rocky Mountain passes. (Check out this crazy map) GUH! Attacking the limiters? Um yeaaaaah. But I promised Bolder that I'd be on his wheel (at least metaphorically) when he returned to get some revenge on this course. And a bloggy promise is even higher than a pinky swear--at least to a certain person.
So, the run is spiffy, right? Well, not exactly. It probably had something to do with maximal testing on Saturday, maximal testing in Sunday, a hard spin on Monday, a hard spin on Tuesday, a stress test at my physical exam on Tuesday, etc. etc., but I totally could not haul myself around Memorial park. I dragged Coach T out in the pre-dawn rain for a measly 3 miles.
The Runnah Chica saw me crack. Oh, the humanity.
Hey, Einstein. Ever hear of a "recovery day." Try one. You'll like it.
But the good news is that the lab technician doing my stress test actually became bored by my stamina. My heart rate climbed so slowly that after 15 minutes I was still 20 beats shy of the maximum they wanted to achieve. "We have enough data. You can, er, stop now if you want."
At 40 I have a healthy ticker, 160 total cholesterol, 70 good cholesterol, and NO cardiac risk. As the doc said, "most people have to take Lipitor to see numbers like this." This exercise stuff really works.
And, Nytro, I got a whooping cough vaccination. So, we can still be friends.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

EMPTY POST!!! (and you got my hopes up!)

:)

greyhound said...

Sorry. Accidentally hit enter. Not empty now.

Anonymous said...

check you out. IronMan, here you come!

Sascha said...

I'm signed up for the Triple Bypass too. AND I called dibs already on the guest bedroom in the Bolder House of Fun!

Bolder said...

i'm in.

you're in.

sascha is a lock.

make sure she doesn't kick your ass. or, kick your ass too much.

TRIPLE BYPASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Laurie said...

Yeah, no sympathy from me. Just join the rest of us who endure bad weather for many months of the year.

21st Century Mom said...

You are complaining about what? Your great health? no..... hmmm....

As someone whose performance, relative to just about everyone else totally sucks you get exactly NO sympathy from me. Sorry.

Way to attack those limiters, though!

And if you triple bypass peeps get tired of Colorado you can always try the Death Ride - 129 miles, 15,000 feet of climbing, 3 passes. I won't be there but you could be!

:) said...

Dude, the weather sucks way up here too. The rain has finally subsided, but it's too cold!!!!

Nice pool.

Dances with Corgis said...

GOOD!!!!!! Ahhahahaha. It's about time you pampered Houstonians got a taste of a real NYC winter!!

Okay, now that I am done with my schadenfreude, sorry about your weather, Greyhound. At least you had a great report at the dr!

Unknown said...

160 on the cholesterol, huh? well, at least there's one number i've got that's higher than yours. well, that and my weight. i suck.

Allez said...

That's funny your stress test was cut short :-) Cool pool picture.

TriBoomer a.k.a. Brian said...

Dog,

I can't do the 3ByPass this year with y'all, but maybe next year. Keep working on those limiters.

I'm going to take my own advice and run for 60 minutes tonight.
(determined not to suck)

Stay tuned...