Day 1 Week 2.

I survived last week. Tuesday was the only day I had soreness issues. Also, I ended up swimming Tuesday evening after all, which helped with the shoulder soreness. The meeting that was supposed to be Tuesday was moved to Thursday, so I exchanged a short bike for the swim. Oh and Saturday I was up at the Mother-in-Laws, and put in a 18 mile ride with rolling hills and higher altitude. It was great! Although my scheduled core workout was blown all to heck, as I wasn't going to haul my physioball up there - its a pain to air up, so I wasn't going to deflate, then inflate, then deflate, only to inflate it again. But...SD cut wood all weekend and I helped, stacking wood is a good core workout. Nothing like cutting and stacking wood.

For the past two winters or so she's survived on burning old fence posts (she's a rancher - so we're talking lots of fence posts). So the process is, cut up the posts, throw the pieces into the back of the truck/trailer, drive over to her house, unload trailer and stack it up on the porch. Repeat until she has enough to last through the winter. Based on the areas of soreness, I'd say this process works the hands, forearms, upper arms, shoulders, neck, upper back, lower back, abs, glutes, quads,and hamstrings.

Before the bike ride I adjusted the handlebar on my bike again. I decided that this ride, since it is in the daylight, would be a good ride to work on bar position to help with the hand numbness issues. I keep trying to make my reach shorter, make sure my wrists are not flexed or hyper extended - stuff like that. I have slowly worked the bar to what I'll call a less aggressive position, thinking that a more upright position will get the pressure off of my hands. ( I don't have aerobars - maybe next year or X-mas). So if I'm sitting on the bike, I rotated the bar towards me and rode 9 miles with no success. Hand numbness started 45 minutes into the ride. During this 9 miles, I thought a lot about the optimum hand position, arm position, etc. At the turn around I used opposite logic. Thinking I keep moving this bar toward me, what if I go the other way? So I moved it to a more aggressive position. Immediately upon mounting the bike this position was uncomfortable. More pressure on the hands, which I knew would happen, but... I decided to give it a mile or two and see if the numbness occurs. Mile 1 nothing, Mile 2 nothing. It was uncomfortable riding the brake hoods - that pressure between my thumb and index finger...but this might be something I could get used to if...mile 3, mile 4, mile 5 a little numbness in my right thumb (this is new) changed hand positions relieved thumb numbness...mile 6 (wee down hill 29.9 mph), mile 7...mile 8..., mile 9. No numbness in second half of ride. Hmm. Not saying anymore, need to ride again in this position, we'll see...
The bad thing about traveling on the weekend, is that Monday morning comes way too soon. It was a struggle, I did hit the snooze button, but I got up before it went off again and was on the road at 4:30. Got my short run in and my morning core routine. Got to watch the fog come in, run through it, and watch it move out. Kind of cool. Ran a negative split... Off to a good start!