Christmas was good to me

I have not been one to enjoy Christmas much as it seems that the meaning has been totally twisted over time; however, My wife loves Christmas so I do my best not to ruin it for her. In my attempts to make this a nice Christmas season for my wife and daughter I somehow got caught up in it and actually had a very nice Christmas season.

Gifts were good as well. On the top of the list was the new Rudy Project Wingspan Time Trial helmet. Unfortunately I need to send it back as the laminate is separating in one spot. That's o.k. though, it is not like I'm going to need it in the next few days. I also received a new Fuel Belt running belt. It is the Helium Fuel Belt and it is comfortable. I didn't fill the bottles up yet, but it is definately more comfortable to wear than the Nathan fuel belt that I have.

I worked out Christmas morning and tried to stick with the workout that was on the plan as much as possible. The workout called for 2 pullups, four deadlifts, 6 burpees and 8 situps AMRAP in 20 minutes. I put weight on the bar and got in the deadlift position just to see how that would feel on the back - as I suspected there was no way I was going to be able to do this movement. I tried a few burpees and they also aggravated the back. So I did some substitutions - I substituted the deadlifts with Leg presses and burpees became six pushups and six squats. The workout moves were fine - the thing that hurt the most was transitioning from excercise to excercise. I had no idea how I was going to feel later in the day and I was braced for a very uncomfortable afternoon, but my back actually felt better as the day went on. 13 rounds total.

This morning I woke up and my back, still sore, feels much better. I'm ecstatic! I thought the recovery time from this was going to really set me back, but I am hopeful that it is just a minor set back. I am going to be careful to not overdo it, but I can see that the amount of time to full recovery is going to be much less than originally anticipated.

I rode the trainer this morning - ice on the roads deterred me from an outside workout. I did a 25k time trial on the trainer. I am going to get my old trainer repaired as it was more indicative of what my road speeds are. The trainer I am using right now is about 2 mph average slower than what I do on the road (at least I hope so). It took me 54:23 to finish the 25k TT. This was a painful workout - I could not seem to find the right gear - I tried all sorts of combinations. One gear would be too easy but the next one up would be ever so slightly too hard. I tried to stay in the harder gear as much as possible but would switch down for about 30 seconds when the lactic acid was building up too much.