My New Friend Doug

I have a new friend.  His name is Doug.  Actually, I'm not sure what is real name is, but to me, he looks like a Doug - so Doug it is!  In the past few weeks, I have been trying everything I can to get rid of my knee pain.  After talking to a friend of my who is a PT, she suggested I do more squats, lunges and take up spinning.  Cycling has been on my list of things to add to my workout for a while.  I drool over the bikes every time I got to Sports Basement.  But I know I'm not ready to fully commit to the whole cycling thing (that sport is expen$ive!), so my next best bet was the gym.

In came Doug.  Doug is the guy on the spinning bike computer.  I wish I had found this sooner!  Has anyone else tried this? Or I'm just really late to the party?  It's a spinning bike with a computer that allows you to pick the type of workout you want to do: interval, strength, endurance, etc.  And each time I try it, it pops us something new!  Doug is so creative!  I've been sticking to the interval and strength training programs and cycling for about 45-60 minutes at a time.  I did do a longer one last week and hit 29 miles, but it really drained me.  I'll back off that for a while.  Man, do I break a crazy sweat and get my heart rate up!  Doug is a drill sergeant!  Since I've never done a trainer at home, I'm thinking this is probably pretty close.  It starts with a nice warm up, hammers down the workout, and then a great cool down.

My bike in the corner

The whole time, Doug has some cheesy music playing in the background, and it changes with the intensity of the cadence and heart rate he wants you to hit.  I think I heard a Kiss song all jazzed/elevator music'ed up at one point and laughed out loud!  Doug, you have a funny taste in music!  But the program is quite neat, it has, depending on how long you pick your session to be, about 10-12 sessions of 3-4 minutes each.  And each time, it's a different mix up of the sessions.  I'm learning form, handle bar position and how to keep my heart rate and cadence in line.  And...I'm really enjoying it!

This is Doug!  Sorry, it's on my crappy phone camera.

Doug's kind-of cute, no?

The computer screen - there's Doug!

In about 45-60 minutes I can usually bust out about 16-20 miles each time.  A real good hard effort that leaves me dripping with sweat.  And the cool thing about it being in the gym, I can easily walk over to the treadmills real quick and get a BRICK workout in!  I'm loving these, too!  You feel like such a bad ass when you leave.  And...the knee is feeling a million times better!  I haven't had the pains or the tightness.  I'm hoping to keep this in my training for a while - shooting for 2-3 times a week ;)

I can't believe tomorrow is October 1st!  You wouldn't know it by the weather around here that Fall has officially started.  The temps have been horrid (like really high 90's and even some 100's!) but thankfully we are going to see a light at the end of the tunnel here in the Bay and they should start coming down by the end of the week.  September just flew by for me.  One second I was quitting my job, starting my own business, and the next I was crossing the finish line at Lake Tahoe!  I had a great mileage week last week, thanks to the race, and finished off with 59.2 miles.  And with my run today, I hit 232 miles for the month of September!  I haven't had a month like that since last year.

This weekend I have a chance to pace some friends of mine in the San Jose Rock N Roll Half Marathon.  It should be fun - both would really love to come in around 2, so I'm hoping my legs will cooperate!  They have felt pretty fresh all week. 

Okay, I've procrastinated enough - I should get back to work.  I've already taken a really, really long 2+ hour lunch with my workout - I'm sure my boss is not going to be pleased! ;)

Happy Thursday and Happy Running peeps!