The weather in Atlanta today is perfect – right now it is 73 and sunny. Humorously, we had a few inches of snow on Sunday. That is Georgia weather for you.

This was my first opportunity to take my new Felt F80 for a decent ride. I originally had planned to head over to the Silver Comet in Smyrna. However, Twitter came to the rescue and saved me probably an hour and a half. How? Simple. About 45 minutes before I planned to leave, I tweeted the following:

Driving nearly 30 miles from #Decatur to go #bike 20(ish) miles on the Silver Comet in #Smyrna. Makes sense, right?

A friend saw my plea and suggested I check out the Stone Mountain Path, which somehow I had failed to realize even existed — despite it only being one mile away from where we are temporarily living!

So instead of having to drive 30 minutes halfway around 285 to get from Decatur to Smyrna where the Comet starts, I just biked down North Decatur Rd. and hopped on the Stone Mountain Path!

I rode out to the Stone Mountain Park, around the mountain and back. Total ride length was 24.66 miles. My speed was a (sort of embarassingly slow) 14.3mph. It took around an hour and forty-four minutes.

While in the park I must have been averaging around 16 mph or higher as you can get a continuous speed going (as compared to various stops and bike path switches that take place outside the park). The park is a lot of fun to ride as there are few cars, and when there are cars, they seem to defer heavily to the bikers and pedestrians. Plus, it’s scenic with the bald granite in view between the trees (probably moreso now in the winter than other parts of the year).

I took a couple of pictures on the way out and back with my Blackberry Curve and twitpic’ed them (out and back). Just to save them down for reference, here they are below.

First was a picture snapped on the way out. You can see the five-way intersection at the base of Stone Mountain Village:

Per my tweet:

8.28 miles out - #StoneMt Path (#biking) #ATL

And then on the way back, snapped this at a major intersection (some highway). It happens to be right next to Sonal’s uncle’s Texaco! Go figure.

My tweet documentation:

18.5 mi heading back to #Decatur loc: Uncle-in-law’s Texaco #StoneMt #biking Path

Was a good, fun ride. Hadn’t done a nice bike ride in awhile.

Enjoy this weather! Be Active!

Did around 20 push-ups and 20 53 lb. swings to warm-up.

Workout:

10 rounds of:
5 double 53 lb. kettlebell swings
5 burpees
Rest one minute between rounds.

After, I went on a 5 mile road bike ride around some neighborhoods in Decatur. Time on the ride was right at 21 minutes.

I didn’t time the entire workout, but I’d guess it was no more than 50 minutes. A good workout though I think I probably could have squeezed in another rep of swings and burpees in per set. Still was a good routine and a nice outdoorsy workout.

About 42 hours fasted (a long fast), I did Tabata Thrusters (8 sets of 20 seconds work / 10 seconds rest) using a single 35 lb. kettlebell, alternating arms at each set. Managed 11 reps for all eight sets!

After maybe 10 or 15 minutes of “rest,” I took my new 2007 Felt F80 road bike (grabbed off eBay on the cheap) and took her out on a maiden five mile voyage. I was a bit nervous at first as a few SUVs seemed to pass me a bit too closely, but I soon found a huge empty parking lot wherein I could test higher speeds, turns, etc. Did about 5.3 miles in 22 minutes.

Overall, been a great fast and I feel very good right now. A 40+ hour fast (basically, eating your last meal at night one day and not eating until dinner two days later) seems a bit long, but I’ve had a good experience with it. It may be some sort of fasting sweet spot for me.

Did a modified C8B300 subbing decline push-ups for spider-man push-ups (feet raised on a stability ball - a bit tricky), split-leg squats for walking lunges, and stability ball planks for the regular variety. 18:15 (lost a bit of time falling off the stability ball on the first set of push-ups).

Jogged a mile on a treadmill (12 minutes - slow, but I’m a] not a runner b] running in my five fingers, which takes some practice).

Cycled on a stationary bike while watching a South Park episode (21 minutes - avg. heart rate of 125, L6).

About 26 hours fasted, I did one hour of low intensity (about 120 bpm heartrate on average) stationary biking while watching the first episode of season three of Dexter.

Dexter aside, it was pretty boring, but I bet you could have guessed as much. Goal today was to take advantage of fasted-state free fatty acid oxidation while minimizing protein catabolism, thus the low-intensity cardio. Who knows if it was actually worth it (probably not).

On another note, I bought a road bike off eBay that should be arriving by UPS this evening. It’s a brand new Felt F80 (circa 2006/7 model). Woot!

Too bad 1) I almost certainly don’t have all the tools to assemble it 2) it’s 28 degrees outside here in Atlanta and it’s probably going to stay cold for the next couple weeks. At least I can look at it!

Today I wanted to mix-it-up a bit from my regular routines, but I wasn’t fully interested in lifting weights (probably save that for tomorrow).

So here’s what I did:

Tabata intervals (8 sets of 20 seconds work / 10 seconds rest) of two 20 lb. dumbbell thrusters. Managed to do 10/10/10/10/9/9/8/8 (something like that anyway).

Then I did 22 minutes of cycling on a stationary bike (L7). Average heartrate was around 130 bpm.

Back to Tabatas, this time I used a 35 lb. dumbbell to do swings. I managed 12 swings for all 8 sets.

Back to the bike, did another 22 minutes, L7. 130 bpm average heartrate.

Finished this workout with Tabata intervals on burpees! Did 5/5/4.5/4/5/4.5/5/5 (38 total in four minutes).

Lunchtime!

About 27 hours fasted, did the C8B300 in 16:39. Rested maybe four minutes or so and did about 23 minutes of “interval” stationary bike cardio, Level 10. This amounted to putting my heart rate around 140 bpm on average (I think peak was upper 150s). Total workout time was approximately 45 minutes.

About 18 hours fasted, did twenty 30 seconds work/30 seconds rest Martone kettlebell drills. Without going into details, they were four 2x2 5 minute “sets” where the first 5 minute set had 5 ATB-based drills and the second 5 minute set had 5 swing-base drills. Repeat.

After, I did a leisurely 5.l5 mile ride – took me about 31 minutes (SLOW).

And the fast continues.

Went mountain biking on FATS today. Took Skinny short out to Brown Wave and then took Skinny Loop long back. Skinny is the blue trail on this map and Brown Wave is teal (and starts off Skinny Loop):

Total distance according to my computer was 12.9 miles. Time on trail was around 1:45. Time riding about 1:35. Took a nice leisurely and fun pace. Was a busy day!

Afterwards, caught up with CF Augusta. The WOD was Filthy Fifty in honor of Charlie turning 5-0 a week back or so. Charlie rocked it out in 32 minutes - beating out everyone else. Looked like a horrific WOD. Next time …

For sake of completeness, I did some dips, chin-ups, push-ups, military press (Kettlebell @ 53lbs), and kettlebell rows (Say a set of 10 each, ‘cept for the military press which I did 5 per arm). Then, I did a five mile loop (one time ’round the neighborhood as seen here) that I laced with “bike sprints” whereby I’d push really hard for a good ten seconds or so before resuming a normal pace. Still took me 23 minutes to do the loop, which isn’t fast (I’ve done 10 on the same loop in 45).

Broke a good sweat even if it wasn’t an ideal workout. Take what you can get!