How Big Is a Truck's Blind Spot?

For all of us out bicycling, this is really important:

And just to emphasize this:

This Girl Can!

(Thanks to Neva for posting this on Facebook, where I saw it!)

And here's more:

Training for a Trek

My Sierra Club magazine just came, with all those tantalizing hikes you can take, led by  experienced super-hikers. I don't know if I'll ever go on one of those hikes---every year I circle all the ones I'm interested in and every year I never get around to signing up---but this year I also checked out the Sierra Club's Web site for more information.

And found this fascinating article: "The Man Who Survived a Polar Bear Attack."  I'm not saying this article will keep me from hiking. Because it won't. And if I don't take that same hike Mike Dyer was on when he was attacked, it will be because I can't afford that hike, not because of his experience.

I'm just saying: Here's how he prepared for that hike: "... he loaded up his backpack with 50 pounds of water, strapped on snowshoes, and set off into the woods for 10-mile training hikes. By the day he left, he was fitter than he'd been in decades."

So, as part of my training as 2014 winds down and 2015 winds up, this is one of the things I'll be doing. Not snowshoes. But long training hikes with a backpack full of pounds of something. For wherever and whenever I decide to make my amazing trek.

Christie

So, I've been writing about a lot of cycling teachers at my gym, but haven't written about Christie yet. Not because she doesn't deserve her very own post but because I guess I have taken her for granted as someone I see all the time at the gym, who is always friendly and helpful and encouraging. She's just plain amazing. Or, as her husband Derek put it on Wednesday, she's "awesome and hard core," and right now she's about 8 months pregnant with their second child, still working with her training clients and still teaching spin classes, water aerobics classes, and I don't even know what-all else.

Olivia, Derek, and Christie

And she had time to send me this picture of the family wearing their Team Sandra shirts. Is this the cutest family you've ever seen, or what?

(I'll post some of Christie's sayings in a separate post sometime soon.)

Core Advantage (Instead of Boot Camp)

Neva shared with Laura and Ellen and me a great way to get core strength that will help us as bike riders, the beginning stretches and exercises in the book "Core Advantage."

Just doing the very beginning exercises felt great, and Neva's explanation was inspiring and motivational.

Neva suggested reading the first chapters, too, which I'll be doing. Thanks, Neva!

More Boot Camp

Busy as I am, grading biology papers and my own environmental science lab reports, I HAVE to go to boot camp on Saturday morning! It makes my day...

Last Saturday's class was a little different. Well, the warmups were the same, with sprints up and down the basketball court, and pushups and squats in between.

Then we had six stations around the gym, and went through the whole circuit three times. I left exhilarated and exhausted. But the pain didn't start until the next day. And it's continuing today.

Then this morning I couldn't make it to spin class, but figured I didn't need to, as I had three adorable grandchildren here. We went on a treasure hunt on the yellow brick road, ate mac-and-cheese for lunch, and then did some weeding and cutting in the back yard. Then when Grandpa got home from work, we went to the lake and watched some people putting their fishing boat in the water and played at the playground. Then home, and nachos for dinner. Yum!

And then, for Family Home Evening, Grandpa played Lazy Horse with the children. So he had Boot Camp, too.

So, this day was probably my best boot camp yet....And tomorrow, more of the same.

Back to Boot Camp

My gym has been offering boot camp classes again, since mid-September, only once a week, Saturdays at 9:00 am, but that has been enough to get me going again.

I love these classes! They leave me exhausted but exhilarated, and ready to do more. So, this morning, after boot camp, I went (with Jason) down to the lake for a jog. Then I ended up just walking most of the way, excusing myself by saying I'd already been running that morning. Oh well, it's a start. (And I know that by tomorrow night I'll have aches in muscles I didn't even know I had. But that's ... okay.)


Here's what we did today:

---Warming up, first 15 minutes: Sprints up and down the gym, then 40 leg-and-arm lifts. Walking lunges up and down the gym, then pushups. More sprints up and down the gym, then something else. You get the picture. At the end of this so-called warmup, which for some (most?) people would have been 10 times more than a regular exercise session in itself, we got down to business:

---Five stations around the gym, two minutes at each station, walking lunges in between.

     ---Karate-style punches while holding 5-, 10-, or 15-pound dumbbells.

     ---Sit-ups with a 10-, 15-, or 20-pound weight disc, holding it up over your head.

     ---Jumping squats, feet together, then feet apart.

     ---Mountain-climbers.

     ---Jump-run over rungs of cloth-tape ladder on the floor, then go sideways around cones, run back to the beginning of the ladder, and repeat.

These classes are run by two fitness trainers who go around making sure we're doing the exercises correctly, and, most importantly, encouraging us. There were about 25 to 35 people there, just the right amount for each station to have not too many people, and to be competitive for the super-athletes among us and fun for the rest of us. Now if only Derek would start his weekday and evening boot camp classes again, I would be very pleased:)