October

Hi, the weather is finally below 100-plus degree daily high’s here n Phoenix. The feeling of even slightly cooler weather is beyond refreshing. I got outside for 1.5 hours on my ebike this past weekend and it felt superb. All in all, I feel great! I have only done 4 rides over the past 1.5 months the last longer than 1 hour. I am focusing a lot of my time on endurance with 2 strength days and 1 day over riding threshold and tempo pace. What I am happy about is that I am making progress quickly riding at tempo with ease. This is a very good thing. I love strength training at the gym. I do a lot of rowing, lat pull with palms forward and facing me, overhead press, lateral raises, and biceps. I’ll do both regular curls with palms forward and hammer curls. I am making great progress.

Other than training I am teaching 3 courses. I just started teaching a nutrition course earlier this week. It can be difficult for me to stay focused because I like the subject so much. I have to keep focus to not get distracted and ramble on certain topics for too long. I cannot emphasize how important it is for someone wit a spinal cord injury to be consistent with healthy eating patterns. Like many things, consistency is king. I am grateful I am not too tempted to eat foods that are not good for digestion, have little to no nutritional value, or that negatively affect my training. The occasional chex mix or potato chips are my weakness. I love fruits and vegetables, organic grass fed beef or bison, beans, sweet potato, rye bread, some cheeses, and eggs. If caffeine was a food group that would be included. I absolutely love having a scoop of nitor protein in a cup of black coffee. Energy drinks can be helpful but a cup of coffee has polyphenols which energy drinks do not. Nutrition topics I like are good combo of omega 3 to 6 fats, high antioxidants, enough iron, fiber and so so much more.

So,,until next month I’m going to continue riding 4x a week, lifting twice, and I take Sunday off. I feel good. I will write more net month and I’ll let you know how I’m doing.