Two weeks in and I’m excited to share how it’s going. There was an additional unexpected challenge this week. Last weekend Sage wasn’t feeling well. By Monday she was having to sleep sitting up on the couch and felt really wrung out. On Wednesday someone her improv team messaged – they’d tested positive for COVID. That morning she tested and it was a strong and nearly immediate positive. Forget waiting 15 minutes, we could see in two. The symptoms weren’t worrisome but she was needing to do little except rest.
On the plus side, Daegan and I are continuing to feel 100% fine. Before Sage got sick we all had a couple days of waking with headaches. Soon after that, Sage started feeling worse while Daegan and I had normal mornings. I suspect we somehow fought it off. I’m glad.
I still did a reasonably great job with my targets for the week despite all that.
My cycling routine was excellent. For the week from Monday to today, I rode every day except yesterday when I gave myself a rest day. I could see stress levels on my watch creeping up and thought a reset would be useful.
This week I rode 177 km as compared to 190 last week This is actually pretty good despite the drop because last week I was on holiday and could get out for a 75 km ride on Wed. I do want to get a few longer weekend rides in though. Or maybe two shorter rides on weekend days to accommodate a ride before Hindi class and one later in the day. That way I could get in 50-100 km without changing up my study routine. (That’s limited by time zone differences between here and India).
I’ve been trying to record bits from my longer rides. While I do share them online, what I’m finding is that they’re more for me. Even just after I post them I feel motivated to get back outside on my bike. I try to make watching them feel like it feels inside my head when I ride and so when I watch them, part of me is back in the saddle. Here are this week’s:
Monday I worked from home as Sage was already feeling bad. As we were expecting a grocery delivery I didn’t ride in the morning. Instead I went out for a 36 km ride. What I was not planning for was the fact that the humidex was approaching 40. I brought two bottles of water with electrolytes and got out there. You will not be surprised to hear that I saw very few cyclists out:
Tuesday Sage thought she’d be fine to manage at home and so I went in to work. This was my first day riding extra before work. I used a route I often do with three different small loops, did one and then zoomed off to work after the last one. It was much cooler than the afternoon before though there was still quite a lot of humidity such that even after only 18km I was definitely in need of a shower.
The heat was back in the afternoon. I thought of going straight home. However, I did want some kimchi to go with dinner. So instead of taking my usual 6-7 km ride home, I made it 14 and headed north to T&T Market. Even with that short distance I appreciated a cool shower when I got home.
The next day the morning was much cooler and more comfortable. I went down to Downsview Park again before work and got 18 km in. The commute home had nothing extra. I had to make dinner and Sage was feeling worse.
Thursday I worked from home and that meant I got to ride my fancy bike in the morning. It’s faster, and surprisingly more comfortable. Where my commuter is really great for riding with loads of gear it does feel a bit like driving an SUV. My other bike is more like a sport coupe. It is fast and responsive (but not too much so – I can’t afford that) and feels like an extension of my body. I took a route through Earl Bales Park – this one with a couple of loops so while I went to the park once I saw lots I never saw before including a beautiful pond.
I also started with a new routine for fuelling: When I wake up I have a smoothie of banana, oat milk and chocolate protein powder. This gets me out the door in about 20 min and my stomach feels lighter. Then, after the ride, I have coffee (Look at me getting out the door without coffee. That’s progress!) along with a bowl of rice, 2 scrambled eggs, kimchi and gai lan ma (chili crisp) for seasoning along with whatever veggies I might have in the fridge. So far it’s working really well!
Friday I headed out a little early and was able to squeeze in 26 km before breakfast and work. I took a route I found on RideWithGPS – I’ve found so many good routes here. I just adjust them to start nearby. The nice thing is they’re already vetted to some degree as to whether the traffic is decent there. The other nice thing is I sometimes find lovely and unexpected spots like the meadow at the top of Leslie Street that I never knew about:
Saturday was a rest day but today I managed to get out for a 36 km morning jaunt. The bad news is that I tried using the GoPro again and while the quality was good and I figured out how to use it without eating tons of battery, I didn’t have the position adjusted well so I have some great video of my handlebars and a tiny bit of road. Next time.
But the ride itself was something else again. Where a couple months ago I was averaging ~20 km/hr, today I started with the new protein shake and brought a few gummy bears along. Half way through I ate about five at a stoplight. Despite making a wrong turn onto a gravel path, I still managed to keep an average of 24km/hr. Despite the extra speed my heart rate stayed reasonable and didn’t get too high even on the one big hill.
Incidentally if you want to follow along with these rides or just look at the details, feel free to look over at my Strava account.
Did I meditate?
Yes – every day, first thing.
How was my diet?
Once again it was nearly where I wanted it. One exception was Wednesday night. I was feeling tired and so I headed out to get takeout at a Sri Lankan takeaway. We got chicken kottu roti which was delicious. What I should have done was put away half for lunch the next day. Instead I got half way through, felt full but also really was enjoying the food. And so, I ate the entire order. Way too much food. By bedtime I could tell this would be an issue and by 3:00 AM I could feel that the acid had built up and I woke up in the night. Take a look down in the next section under sleep. Check out July 31 and you can see how that worked for me.
How was my sleep?
Not as good as it could have been. Check out the correlation between eating too much for dinner the night of July 30 and my July 31 sleep (the sleep dates are logged relative to waking day not the date you went to sleep.)
What about stress?
Another good week for the most part except (shocker!) July 31. My stress was elevated for most of that day as my body tried to digest all that food as I also recovered from that morning’s ride. It’s clear that when I eat as I should, I sleep better and my body is less stressed. Not only that, but stress was high for well over an hour – more than double any other day including days where I had a strenuous morning ride.
How was my mood?
With Sage sick, I’ve been busier than usual and so sometimes I have struggled to feel on top of everything. However, I never felt overwhelmed. There was a sense of having every minute allocated most days though for at least a couple hours/day what my time was allocated to was enjoying riding my bike so I always felt good.
With all of this there was never a sense of being too tired to take anything more on or even that post-lunch feeling at work where I have to make my desk a standing desk because I’m feeling sluggish after lunch.
This week’s conclusion:
First: the numbers:
Week 0 is the week before my vacation bike trip. I was spotty about exercise and most of that exercise was from one big ride I took. My stress was at its highest, sleep quality at its lowest though my average sleep duration was not bad.
These past two weeks you can see that my sleep duration was exactly the same. The quality went down this week (that kottu roti!). However even though my kilometres went down my intensity minutes (time normalized for effort) actually went up a bit even with my rest day. And despite the kottu roti extravaganza, my overall average stress for the week still went down.
This was a good week for learning. I can really see here the direct correlation between eating too much for enjoyment and poor sleeping and energy-sapping stress. I had a decent ride that morning but recovery from it was slower.
On the other side of it, today’s ride especially showed me the value of really good fuelling, rest and consistent exercise. All of that together resulted in a 4 km/hr (25%) speed increase from the last time I rode the same route back in May. And really, the biggest changes in how I feel have come in the past week.
All of this together makes me feel the way I remember feeling at my best – incidentally the other times I’ve paid close attention to all of these variables. There are times in the morning where I’ve been riding pre-coffee that feel like I’ve had a bunch of coffee thanks to the energy and mood improvement just getting on the bike has given.
I also still see the effects when I get to work in terms of stress. There’s an increase in the values thanks to the actual exercise effort. However, once I settle in at my desk, down goes the stress until the level is classified as resting, often until I get to lunch.
So all good so far. The plan for the coming week is:
- Aim for hitting my eating goal 100%
- 6 days of cycling including one >50 km ride – preferably more though sadly I have to take my fancy bike in for it’s first post-purchase tuneup on Saturday afternoon…
- Sort out the GoPro filming methods to go fully hands-free
Hope your week ahead is awesome!
