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So I was hoping to get going on my fitness goals for the year this weekend. To recap from my 1/1/11 blog post, I would like to bike 500 miles, and inline skate at least 100 miles. As of right now getting the bike anywhere to ride will be difficult because I don’t want to put it in the CX-7 and we don’t have a bike rack yet (hopefully soon). So I decided to skate, the first time in quite a while. I went out yesterday to Redwood Shores and skated on the path there near Oracle’s headquarters. I skated 5 miles, just under 29 minutes total, not bad considering I haven’t done anything in quite a while, but not great for my past times. But I wanted to get out and do it, get the pain over and done with so I can skate on a more regular basis.

So I found out that there’s an inline skating marathon in Napa valley coming up on June 6th (my dad’s bday).

I haven’t skated, or done much of anything cardio wise in the past 6 months (cept some running on the treadmill back in January). Wonder if I could get myself together enough to skate 26 miles in the next 3 weeks? I obviously wouldn’t be trying to do the marathon for time, just to do it.

I think I might give it a go, though if I am going to I need to get out on my skates this weekend! I’m gonna have to dust them off and charge up my Forerunner 305. Anyone else in the Bay Area up for some skating? I might be a big guy, but I tell you I love to skate, I’ve got four pairs of inline skates :) These are the ones I use for fitness now K2 Radical Pro In-Line Skates.

I will need to get myself a helmet and likely some pads and such before the marathon as I don’t think my hockey pads/helmet will do for that event :)

So I need a goal in my skating, here it is 50 miles in 30 days. I started yesterday, 6/15, so I’ve got until 7/15 to reach the goal. Why 50 miles? Well in the past year (after yesterday’s skate) I had done just around 50 miles on my K2’s. 50 miles in thirty days shouldn’t be too hard to do, but the key will be to actually continue to keep skating. As of right now I’m at about 12.6 miles, skating 6.3 yesterday and today both. Yesterday’s account is posted on Connect.garmin.com, but today’s isn’t, apparently my Forerunner didn’t charge last night, so it didn’t last at all today.

I skated the same route as yesterday, Grant’s Trailer, today hurt though. I had to stop and rest for a while, whereas yesterday I felt fine the whole way. I don’t know if it was the heat, 90+, the fact that I slept 4.5 hours last night (was up late reskinning dnnvoice.com) or that I had two granola bars and a smoothie to eat all day.

Lesson learned, sleep more, eat better, and move somewhere cooler!

I likely won’t skate again until Sunday, at least not outside. I’m hoping to play inline hockey tomorrow night with the old gang. We’ll see how I adjust back to hockey skates, it’s been a year or so since I last played.

So Sunday Natalie and I headed up to Creve Coeur park. She walked the dogs and I skated for the first time this year. Boy did I hurt by the end of it, I think most of the pain was caused by a loose frame on my skate, which I didn’t notice until before I went to go skate today.

Sunday I went ~5miles in just over 30 minutes, with an average heart rate of 178, burning in excess of 1000 calories in that time period, at least according to the software.

Today I went ~4.8 miles in just over 28 minutes, a better pace than I did on Sunday, with an average HR of 179, though I did have a break during today’s session as I ran into an old friend on the trailer and stopped to talk for 5 minutes.

You can check out the results from Sunday and Today online at https://trail.motionbased.com/trail/user/chrishammond it even has a map.

So I’m back in the fitness game, hoping to skate 4-5 times a week, I’ll try to get back out tomorrow, and might even try to get some in during the trip to Colorado this weekend, we’ll see how that goes.

I need to get on the Wii fit so I can track any weight changes, and do some other workouts, perhaps I’ll do that in the morning.

Headed off to Creve Couer park again tonight after work. I did my first mile in 4:37 or something close to that, second mine I had done by 9:00. Third mile i hit a brick wall. My shins started to get tired out, which rarely happens when I skate anymore. I think the third mile took me over 6:30 to do, the wind sure didn't help, I might have been better off doing my normal look backwards today.

I ended up doing the 4.79 mile loop in less time than I did on Wednesday, though I don't know the exact number off the top of my head, I think I was only 9-10 seconds faster due to the wind and pain! I'll plug my forerunner in later and see what the exact numbers were.

Tonight after work I headed home to grab my skates and go to Creve Couer Park. I skated my normal loop, though not in as fast a time as I have done in the past. It was quite windy, and a bit chilly, which I wasn't expecting, there were also some parts of the trail that were still wet so I had to take it easy on those sections to keep from falling. I wish they made some "wet" inline wheels, perhaps they do? I stopped and adjusted my skate once, and I think I've managed to figure out how to pad my ankle enough to keep my skate from rubbing.

I hope to go again tomorrow, but we'll see how that goes, it will depend on the weather.

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Chris Hammond

Chris Hammond is a father, husband, leader, software developer, photographer and car guy. Chris focuses on the latest in technology including artificial intelligence (AI) and has spent decades becoming an expert in ASP.NET and DotNetNuke (DNN) development. You will find a variety of posts relating to those topics here on the website. For more information check out the about Chris Hammond page.

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