Last Gym for the Week

Today was the normal Friday gym visit, knocking out the core and upper body stuff. I started with some cycling today, 20 minutes of spinning to work the legs gently. After that, some good stretching finished off the leg work for the day.

There were a couple of women who were wearing the workout pants with the waistbands flipped down, which is always amusing. They wear stuff like that, constantly fussing with the pants, trying to keep them on while they do elliptical trainer, and then they're forever checking out who is noticing them, so they can pretend to wonder why someone would stare. I need to consult my psychologist friends to find out what the deal is there. :-)

Anyway, core stuff was the usual bits of groaning, and then it was time for upper body work. I finally bumped up to 95 lbs on bench, and did 2x8 reps of that new weight. It was a huge psychological boost to put those 25 lb wheels on either end of the bar instead of a combination of various smaller weights. 5 lbs isn't that big a deal, but aesthetically, it was way cooler to me. After incline dumbbell presses and lat pulldowns, I changed from the tricep extensions with a single dumbbell to the tricep extension pulldowns using the rope handles and the weight machines instead. Had to bump up the weight a good bit to get the same effect, but now I think I'll continue with that method of doing tricep work. I was getting concerned about larger and larger dumbbells being held over my head as I progressed. Working out is not worth whacking your head with a large weight, right? :-)

So, a good day of gym work, and now it's chill time until Sunday and the Motive half. I drove the last 4 miles of the race course this afternoon, to make sure I knew all the weird little corners and small uphill bumps in the last bit of the race. There's a long subtle uphill stretch during the 13th mile that will be a challenge, for instance. Tomorrow, we get to sleep in and meet at 7:30 am for our super easy jog and stretching. That'll be nice.