I use to think I had titanium knees because they never bother me, even when I was training for the next marathon. I am not sure why, but I am starting to feel my knees more. It might be because I am running less or maybe it is just getting older. I looked at my training log and can see that I am biking more than any year in my life, but my running is somewhat less than any of the past few years.

I have experiemented with ways to combine running and cycling into one chart so I can see how much training I am doing. One method uses calories burned (as reported by my Polar heart rate monitor or estimated using formulas). This chart looks like this.  This shows my level of exercise is similar to last year and ahead of the prior few years.  Click each chart to view enlarged.

The other method I have used is to try to translate everything to equivalent running miles by using a formula I have developed. The formula is just an rough approximation.

Here are the charts for running and cycling only.  They show that I am doing a lot more biking and less running than past years.  Maybe that is why I have tired knees?

Categories: Training Log
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Earlier in the day we biked on the tandem up Hobble Creek.  I was looking for more miles so I took my single bike out from the Utah condo to climb Squaw Peak.  I was curious how fast I would be able to climb compared with last year.

After making the climb I continued up the highway to Nunn’s park to get on the bike trail.  It was closed so I turned around there and headed back down the bike path.  About half way down I had to come to a stop because there was a moose right in the middle of the path.  I wish I had my camera with me.

When I got home I tried to compare my climb time up Squaw Peak with prior times but I had not done a good job of recording the previous times.  After doing some looking into my Polar HRM data, I came up with this comparision.  It turns out I did pretty good but the prior times I was not pushing as hard. I averaged only 200 watts output compared with about 275 watts on the Metcalf climb. The difference is this climb is more than twice the distance and 60% more elevation gain.

Categories: Cycling, Training Log
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