The challenge continues!

[Originally Posted: 6/22/2007]

I gotta say, I am having the hardest time keeping interest in training. But then again I've been working late lately and went to the Padres game Tuesday. That never helps working out the next day...

So here's where we are:

Monday I made it to the gym and had a good leg workout.

Tuesday and Wednesday nuttin! Well, not exactly nuttin, just no cardio. I've been working out with the medicine ball and the exercise ball in the evenings.

Yesterday, Thursday, I did 30 minutes on the bike trainer in the garage. Since it was about 100 degrees out it felt pretty good...

And I think I'm headed to the garage in a few to get another Trainer session in.

Last weekend I bought the first items specifically for Ecuador! I picked up some soft shell pants and some fancy schmancy climbing undies. The pants are pretty cool and super stretchy, I'm stoked. :D

Part of the fun of each new trip is getting new stuff to take along.

Until next time,

R

Training when Motivation-Free

[Originally Posted: 6/14/2007]

Man, last week was the first week of training and I was so motivated that I woke up early every day, 5am being early.

What a difference a week makes!

This week I so haven't wanted to work out. Monday I got up but never made it to the gym in the morning. I finally got there at lunch and I really felt better for going.

But Tuesday morning I STILL didn't want to go so again, I didn't make it in the morning, but was able to get there at lunch.

Those workouts were stairs and legs on Monday, stairs and upper body on Tuesday.

So finally on Wednesday Mandi and I made it to the gym in the morning. We both did cardio then went heavy on legs. I gotta say, it really felt good, but it was hard to get myself ready to go.

Thursday though, I had grand plans! Dentist in the morning, work from home till lunch, hit the gym hard and sweat A LOT, then finish the day working from home.

After the dentist I couldn't get online to work so... Had to go in to the office. There went the day.

Things are looking up though. Monday I am very interested in riding my bike to work. Should work to a nice 50 miles round trip.

Honeymoon Over means TRAINING!

[Originally Posted: 6/7/2007]

Ya, you betcha it does!

New York rocked! Man I dig that town, and I'll be blogging on that more in my personal blog.

But we're here to talk about training baby!!

Okay, what I bean doin??? Well for the most part just basic cardio and weight training.

Monday I was at it early since I was still on East Coast time. Hit the stair mill for 30 minutes and then did light to medium weights for legs and upper body. Finished with 20 minutes on the stationary bike. I was pretty fatigued on my first day back at work...

Tuesday was more stair mill, 30 minutes, and then an upper body workout. Where Monday's stair mill session was survival, Tuesdays session was more high pressure. :)

Wednesday I started with 30 minutes on the stationary bike then went heavy with legs. Yeah, I was walking a bit funny at work.

Thursday I had to take Sam to school so I did a light stair mill session at lunch then ran after work. My run was painful and barely over 3 miles... I haven't run much in the last few months so I have an uphill effort there but my motivation is high!

A side event to my gym sessions has been using the Exercise ball. Man you can really hammer your abs on that thing. I'm still learning more exercises on this device but I'm enjoying it.

This week in Training

[Originally Posted: 5/21/2007]

So in the week before my wedding training has taken a back seat.

Highlights this week were Golf on Sunday, a few sessions in the gym, and a couple of sessions on the exercise ball.

At the gym I did my normal stair mill workouts but recently I've started using a new method called Fartlek.

This is a process of warming up then increasing the tempo substantially for a short duration then returning to a maintainable tempo and then repeating. I come away from the session fairly fatigued but I also feel the affects of the workout for most of the day. The other part I feel is if I take a day off before the next workout I really feel stronger. It was surprising at first but a pleasant surprise.

I am new to the exercise ball but Mandi has shown me a few workouts and we're still exploring this new tool/toy... I primarily use it for trunk training. I have a history of back pain so I'm really looking for something to help me with core strength. I know this is certainly valuable on a mountain, but I'm also hoping it'll appease my back pain somewhat.

So the wedding is Saturday, off we go honeymooning on Sunday for a week, so I see a few added LB's in my near future. But on my return to San Diego I'll be going into full blown training mode for the next six months.

What does it take to climb a 19,000 foot mountain?

[Originally Posted: 5/8/2007]

What does it take to train for 19,000 plus feet?

Well, I'm not really sure. The highest I've been is 14,505 and the toughest climb I've done was Mount Rainier at 14,411.

My best guess is I'll need to be about 25% more fit than when I did Rainier. How how do you quantify that? Hard to say. I know that I was reasonably comfortable on Rainier. And I further know that I suffered mightily during the decent.

So where was I when I did Rainier? I was running 6 to 7 miles 3 times a week, and was doing the Stair Mill at my gym 3 times a week for 40 to 60 minutes at between level 10 and 12.

What I did not do, and my climbing partner Kurtiss did do, was to hike real mountains or do any kind of hiking in my plastic boots. I've read repeatedly that plastics don't need break in. Well that may be, but your feet and legs certainly do. Plastics hurt! You need to learn how to walk in them, uphill, downhill and on flats.

Given Kurtiss' impressive strength in the later portion of the climb and decent it would seem that hiking Mount Baldy several times in his plastics really paid off.

So this time around I plan on repeating my efforts in the cardio training, and even stepping it up some, and I plan on augmenting this with hikes on trails in plastic and leather boots.

Further I plan on specific training for decending.

And finally I plan on training my neck muscles since I suffered much pain in my neck, I can only assume due to the added weight of helmet and headlamp. I'm not totally clear on the the cause but I plan on strengthening my neck muscles just the same.

So that's it in a nut shell. I hope to do training hikes on Mt San Jacinto and Mt Baldy in Riverside, as well as training hikes on local mountains like Woodson and Iron Mountain.

This all begins right after my impending wedding over memorial weekend. After that Ray will be hitting hard. :D

What are Cotopaxi and Cayambe?

[Originally Posted: 5/8/2007]

Cotopoxi and Cayambe are both active Volcano's in the Cordillera Oriental of Ecaudor.

Cotopaxi has the distinction of being the tallest active volcano in the world. It is a beautifully symetrical cone shaped mountian. She run's about 19,347 feet tall and from the snow capped summit one can look down into the caldera.

Cayambe is just slightly lower at 18,997 feet, and is slightly broader. Cayambe has the distinction of being directly on the equator. Due to the equatorial bulge of the earth that makes the summit of Cayambe the farthest point from the center of the earth and the highest point on the earth's equator.

What the Hell???

[Originally Posted: 5/5/2007]

So as one can see below, my next mountains will be Cotopaxi and Cayambe in Ecaudor, first week of December. :D

I plan on blogging about my training and preparations for this trip. Why? well, who knows. Maybe somebody is interested or will try something similar and want to see how others have prepared...