Pre-OS week of Nov 11
Monday - no workout...travel day
Tuesday - business trip to Berlin. Ran 6 miles with 4x half-mile intervals to get in a nice hard effort (paces were 5:56, 5:46, 5:59, 5:59). I'm signed up for a half-marathon this weekend for fun so want to get in some speed / hard effort each time I run this week. It's been a while since I added a new map to my Garmin collection! http://connect.garmin.com/activity/403313340
0
Comments
Things on my business trip got out of hand BIGTIME last night...up until past 2am and a LOT of drinking. Not exactly good race-week behavior but it's a "C" race and I'm building social capital with my colleagues, so..........
Today woke up at almost 11am in rough shape. Since I had missed 2 meetings already I decided to bag the whole morning and do a run before getting back to real work in the afternoon. Overall 5 miles at 6:59 avg pace. Ran it as 2 miles easy, 2 miles at MP (ran at 6:39/mi, so a bit ahead of pace), then a mile easy to finish. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/404043685
Only one more night of hard drinking although tomorrow I can't sleep in given the 7:45am flight...
Man, I am not capable of hard drinking any more... two is a lot for me. Three and I'm done. Probably just as well. :-)
Wednesday, I did a swim and an easy run.
My swim is shockingly slow. Since it's going to be very limited for the next few months, I'm keeping up a fair amount strength-based drill work and/or butterfly. This workout had some 100s with controlled breathing (every 3, then 5, then 7), some fly, and some under water laps. I don't really know what the underwater laps accomplish, but it feels like you really have to control your shape to do it without stress. Total was about 2500 because Garmin doesn't work with kicking and some drill. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/403864461
Easy 6 mile run: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/404092944
Thursday: normally I wouldn't swim 2 days in a row, but that's how travel and work worked out this week. More 100s as 25 fly, 75 free and alternating 50s as 25 fly/25 free then 25 under water 25 free. (That, by the way, is a bit of a challenge). Another approximately 2500 http://connect.garmin.com/activity/404296756
Hour bike in the evening. 1 hour. 4 x 10 a bit easier than last time, as I'm anticipating a good long run as I will be several hours south of here on Saturday. The 10 minute intervals were between 190 and 200 W. I imagine my FTP right now is probably 220, but I'm guessing.http://connect.garmin.com/splits/404296761
Friday is going to be very tight with work and travel and I probably will end up with a day off.
I ran a local Half Mary last weekend. I'm still feeling it in my right calf and I seem to have some kind of bruise/injury on my right foot, but I was able to get some light workouts in:
-Monday - short swim focus on form and drills
-Tuesday - 2 mi (slow ~10min)
- Wed - off (7am meeting)
-Thursday - 2 mi @ GRP + 30 min on spin bike
-Friday - overslept (no excuse)
I'm planning my OS to start in mid Dec so I will be participating in the January OS group. Kinda eyeballing the trainerroad 40k TT low volume bike plan for 12 weeks to structure my OS around and mix it up from the usual FTP work.... There is a lot of v02 and above threshold work in that plan (and that is my weakness having a low v02 to ftp ratio)
For now I'm taking my downtime rest/recovery very seriously and took 7 days off of doing absolutely nothing , since then I have done 2 swims, 2 bikes, and 2 runs , nothing longer than 45 minutes and nothing higher than a TSS of 32..... With the theory of adaptations occurring in a 4-6 week period I wanna get a full 4 weeks of very low volume and very low intensity to really give my body a break.... After that I will do 2 weeks of increasing intensity in prep for the OS.
Todays swim 1900yds in 40min , PB, Fins , Paddles , bi-lateral breathing , backstroke , breaststroke
congrats on your star. Just another 240 posts to get to 500. :-)
@ Tim – I'm starting the OS in January, I suspect Monday Jan 6 since starting on Dec 30 doesn't make sense to me. If the "official" start is Dec 30 I will start a week late in week #2.
I think the answer to the weight loss question depends a lot on if that 20lb is low-hanging fruit because you've become a bit lax and let it creep in, or if you're already pretty damn light and lean and 20 lb is some sort of massive stretch goal. For example, I'm pretty stable at 137-140 when I'm training. If I let myself get to 160, that 20 would be "low-hanging fruit". If I wanted to race at 120 lb, that 20lb would require an incredible undertaking and pretty fundamental change (and probably near starvation!).
Obviously 20lb is a lot of weight if we’re not talking about low-hanging fruit. I'm not sure how you’d go about doing that. Take my thoughts on weight loss beyind the low-hanging-fruit with a big grain of salt...if you read my race report and training report that I essentially lost no weight during my marathon training...it was one of the areas I came up short relative to my goals. I was going for 5-7lb and didn't get there. The low-hanging-fruit, on the other hand, I think I'm pretty good at getting.
So if you're going after the low-hanging fruit, honestly I'd start immediately and keep going until it's done. With a May marathon that probably implies doing some of it in parallel to your training because assuming an 18 week training build I'd guess taking it all off before you get going is very unlikely. That said, before you get into the meat of your training is a great time to do 2 things:
(a) Run a pretty aggressive daily calorie deficit and get a good headstart on the weight. Go online to multiple calculators to get a good estimate of your RMR, and make sure to use HR-based calorie burn estimates for workouts and not the hourly estimates which in my experience WAY overstate the calorie burn from workouts.
(b) embed a few techniques into your daily routine to make sure you can sustain some good eating habits so you don't slip into the "I'm training so I can eat like a horse" trap once you get into your training. Some of these techniques might include be food logging or other tracking, or might include "rules" like no food after 8pm, no room service or eating in airports when traveling, etc (those are two of my personal favorites, btw). Or could also include some of the techniques from the book Racing Weight like nutrient timing (another favorite of mine).
One other word of warning, which is that I found marathon training to be a lot like OS training in that my calorie burn was nowhere near the levels of the in-season where you have those massively long bike rides. So be really careful about intake. And don't let yourself get hungry at the end of the day by starving yourself at breakfast/lunch and failing to fuel workouts. You will make bad choices at dinner IN ADDITION to being hungry and irritable all day long!!
I'm right there with you in so many ways. Racing Boston next Spring and will be just short of my 50th birthday. My times are almost exactly where you are/were (1:29 and 3:16 from this year) and I have a bit of "low hanging fruit" from the last few months.... Hopefully we'll both do well on both counts.
I have exactly the problem that Matt describes...the binging at the end of the day if I'm not careful. I'm trying to develop the right habits again right now.
@Matt - good advice. I'm backing down this week to make it all swims. I ran an easy 7 miles on Saturday which definitely set me back a bit. I'm pretty sure this will go away with some rest, but at least I have time to heal before it affects my season.
I'm traveling. Sat and Sun were at a swim meet for the kids in Columbia MO. Schedules allowed me about a 90 min window each say so I ran about 11.5 mi each day. It was prett rolling, so that was cool. Sunday was pretty slow, unfortunately, because there was this huge wind that seemed to follow the hills, mostly doing down. It was so hard I'm not sure it helped nearly as much when it was at your back as it was really very nasty going into. Oy!
I forgot my Garmin wireless USB key so I don't have links. I'm writing this while sitting in an airplane in Phoenix while waiting dor a gate to open, so please pardon any iPhone typos!
The eating continues.... Gained 8lbs since IMFL that is a pace of about 1/2 lb per day... Doesnt seem possible but it is.... Heck its only an extra 1700-1800 calories per day right? I been doing that easily... Not worried but still amazing...
Got a body tune up.... 2 doc visits... 1 for annual check up , 1 for last xray of clavicle and the bone is a filled in and fully repaired , complained that the muscles and tendons in the front of that shoulder have been tender lately and he was so impressed with my recovery he said he really didnt think there was anything wrong like rotator cuff but sent me to PT anyway for some graston... So went to the PT for some graston and some more rubber band excercises and stretches to re-strengthen the shoulder... I had dropped those 2 weeks before KONA and hadnt done them for 5 weeks so gotta keep after it...
Got a bike tune up.... had FELT rubber grips installed on my hoods instead of tape (they might have prevented my accident by keeping me from stripping off the front of the bike) put the new FLO 90 rear wheel on and adjusted the brakes...
Joined a local tri-club LRTC in Laconia NH.... Since they dropped the requirement to wear there jersey's it just nice to support them and participate in some of the local activities...
Did 1500yds of easy drills with the Tri-club yesterday and 5 miles on the nice new rubber track with 4 x .25 almost Z4 LOL.....
I think I'll join this thread, if you don't mind. I've been in "unstructured training" since Austin HIM Oct 27. Hoping to gain some accountability (diet and getting the workouts done). Supposed to start BF or RF plan yesterday, and still waffling on which to do. I've loaded up BF, but still not sure which is my "weaker sport"....I'm not stellar at either, and am really torn as to which is my weaker. Decision for BF ultimately hinged on "which one I dread the most", unfortunately. The thing I dread the most is Z4 intervals on the trainer. Just hate the quad burn. So, plan to start tonight with FTP test week 1 of BF plan (unless someone convinces me to do otherwise today!). Then I'm supposed to do 8wks of GF plan, before starting weeks 9-20 of IM plan for IMTX (my first).
If any of you have time, would you please look at my thread/question as to which you think I should do now....BF or RF? I still can't decide which is my weaker -- http://members.endurancenation.us/F...fault.aspx
Thanks.
To answer your question.... I say BF.... Couple years ago I wanted to do a RF since I consistently placed lower in the rankings in the Run vs the Bike.... Talking to Coach P and he said we need to get you to FOP on the bike before you need to worry about the Run.... The bike is still the longest leg, ROI will pay off more in total time , it doesnt appear that there is a huge discrepancy between your run and bike anyway and the theory always has been more bike work will help your run but not necessarily the other way around.
Thanks Tim. That's sort of what I was thinking too, although it'll be a looong time before I'm FOP...but, can only work with what I have now!