July 23: Just brutal humid again. Judy and I got on the bikes at 7:30 AM and even that was too late. Hell, we could have gone at 5 AM with the same results: sopping, soupy, horrible humidity. So what with yesterday’s hard ride my aim was to go long and easy and completely under my target zone. Well, the first hour went as planned, and I was doing a great job at keeping it low, but then the second hour, well it was just a major step even further to the low, and that’s when I realized that I’d gone hard enough yesterday that my body was just beat. HR just wasn’t coming up at all. Was a case of HR not paralleling the perceived exertion. 

Yea, funny how that first hour was decent, but how the second hour went to shit. Suddenly in the second hour my legs were heavy and anything remotely taxing just didn’t show in HR. Had an incident like this earlier, maybe like a week ago, and it was after a tough workout. So I just totally shut it down, soft pedaling all the rest of the way home. During the whole ride I was just sweating like crazy, water literally running down my arms onto my hands and onto the handlebars. Couldn’t keep dry for nothing. My sister even called during the ride to warm me of the humidity, telling me I was at a point where it was so humid out that the body would not be able to cool itself with sweat anymore. Hey, I knew it sucked out there. 

Now I’d planned on three hours of cycling but when I couldn’t even get my HR up I knew it was time to point the bike home. Nice thing now about using the HR monitor again was being able to read the situation, and then change the workout accordingly. I mean it was right there in front of me: HR will NOT come up any more…you’re done…do not pass go…go home! So I ended up with about 2:30 hrs. I did keep the HR monitor on for a while to make sure my HR came down to the place it usually does after a ride, and it did, so I felt like I hadn;t pushed it over the line by riding in that humidity. 

Later on I did my resistance workout, doing chest today. Now I decided to go up in the unilateral exercises, going up in weight about 15 lbs from last week. Felt MUCH better to! So I was looking at my handout for the next appt. with my cardiologist and found that it’s this Tuesday rather than Thursday. So I think I’m going to do an easy walk - yea walk - with Pepper tomorrow, and then do an easy ride on Monday. This so I have the guns to do a good stress test echo on Tues. Don’t want to be so tired that the HR does not come up as it had today. 

Stayed with pop tonight so I did this healthy toasted Ciabatta bread sandwich where I made an avocado spread rather than using mayo, then added chicken and fresh veggies. Turned out really sweet. Pop even like it. Oh yea, last night was my “cheat” day of the week for eating so I bought Judy and I some food from Taco Tanto’s in Kent. Judy ate the healthy version burrito with no meat, while I just had to go with 2 El Biggo Combos that had ground beef, pinto beans, rice, cheese and lettuce. I added jalapeno peppers to the mix. And be damned if I wasn’t able to punch down both of those burritos in one sitting. Yup the appetite is definitely back!