Sunday once again and time for an update.
Pretty smooth sailing this week. Hit the gym for some weights a few times throughout the week, which I hadn't done the previous two weeks, so feeling the wonderful soreness that happens as a result of that. Not been quite at my calorie goals sadly, but I'm managing to make at least some progress on cleaning up what I'm eating.
Light on the content this week as well I'm afraid. I've really not had all that much new stuff to talk about for a while so they may stay short for the foreseeable future. What I do have to say is that my mileage seems to have stalled a bit. My long runs haven't been getting much longer the past few weeks because I've been having to cut them short due to concerns of injury. Working on slowly but surely pushing the distance up to where I want it, thankfully I've got plenty of time before my race date to get into shape.
So, what does the scale have to say this week? 207, down a pound from last week. Not good in the short term, but in the long term I'm holding pretty steady really so I'm ok with that. Until next week, keep being the you you want to be.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 79)
Sunday once again and time for the weekly update.
Not much to say this week really, all been going pretty smoothly.
Got a new piece of tracking tech this weekend, the Zeo Sleep Coach I'd been after for a while. Tried it out last night and it seemed to work pretty well, though it'll be a few days at least before I have any sort of truly useful data on habits. I've also been looking at the data from my daily measurements of my resting heart rate and noticing a few patterns I'm going to try to monitor more closely. Namely, when I go more than a couple days without exercising my resting heart rate goes up, a beat or two the first couple days and then a larger jump on about the third or fourth day. When I go for another run, it drops back down by most of the difference again. I was expecting to see a downward trend in the measurement over time as a training effect, but I wasn't expecting the variation to be that noticeable on a scale of days rather than weeks. Always good to see things working better than I'd expected. I'll keep posting updates on some of my non-weight measurements as I find interesting things to post.
So, speaking of my weight, this week the scale tells me 208, the same as last week, body fat has stayed the same as well. Steady as she goes I suppose. Until next week, keep being the you you want to be.
Not much to say this week really, all been going pretty smoothly.
Got a new piece of tracking tech this weekend, the Zeo Sleep Coach I'd been after for a while. Tried it out last night and it seemed to work pretty well, though it'll be a few days at least before I have any sort of truly useful data on habits. I've also been looking at the data from my daily measurements of my resting heart rate and noticing a few patterns I'm going to try to monitor more closely. Namely, when I go more than a couple days without exercising my resting heart rate goes up, a beat or two the first couple days and then a larger jump on about the third or fourth day. When I go for another run, it drops back down by most of the difference again. I was expecting to see a downward trend in the measurement over time as a training effect, but I wasn't expecting the variation to be that noticeable on a scale of days rather than weeks. Always good to see things working better than I'd expected. I'll keep posting updates on some of my non-weight measurements as I find interesting things to post.
So, speaking of my weight, this week the scale tells me 208, the same as last week, body fat has stayed the same as well. Steady as she goes I suppose. Until next week, keep being the you you want to be.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 78)
Sunday yet again and time for a brief update.
This week was pretty packed due to Harry Potter week so not much to talk about.
What brilliant revelations do I have this week? Eating popcorn in large amounts for as one of your primary meals of the day is not good for your nutrition, 4 hours of sleep a night is not really enough, a week of no training leaves you not fully equipped for your long run to be longer at the end than it was at the beginning.
Not all that revelatory, but whatever, I needed something to fill the space with.
So what do the numbers tell me this week? 208, up a pound from last week. So despite my terrible food this week I didn't do too bad, and my body fat stayed about the same as well so I'm really not too much worse off for wear. This week I'll do better. Until next week, be the you you want to be.
This week was pretty packed due to Harry Potter week so not much to talk about.
What brilliant revelations do I have this week? Eating popcorn in large amounts for as one of your primary meals of the day is not good for your nutrition, 4 hours of sleep a night is not really enough, a week of no training leaves you not fully equipped for your long run to be longer at the end than it was at the beginning.
Not all that revelatory, but whatever, I needed something to fill the space with.
So what do the numbers tell me this week? 208, up a pound from last week. So despite my terrible food this week I didn't do too bad, and my body fat stayed about the same as well so I'm really not too much worse off for wear. This week I'll do better. Until next week, be the you you want to be.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 77)
Sunday once again and time for the weekly update.
Not much to talk about this week so it should stay pretty brief.
Was pretty bad about doing any cooking this week sadly, and next week won't be much better since every night I'm going to be at the movies instead of home. Picked up some protein powder at the store today so that should at least improve the fractionation of my diet a bit.
Decided to do my long run on the treadmill this week. This had a few consequences. I lost more to sweat this week in absolute terms than I have before, despite being inside, which was to be expected really. The treadmill offers me a few nice benefits over running outside. For one, my run ends at the right place every time, no guess work to make sure that I finish my desired distance when I'm back at the apartment instead of half a mile off. As a result of that I also have more freedom to decide while I'm on the run that I feel good and can do another mile or some such, as happened today. It also allows me to focus more on my heartrate than on my pace. Once I find a pace that I can hold for the duration at about the right heart rate I'm set and I can just do my run and hit the zone. Runkeeper does not yet have truly robust support for heart rate sadly, I'd love to see them add better audio cues for heart rate, and the ability to key coaching off of it. The treadmill also let's me take the time to calculate my turnover, which is a number I like tracking to help keep my form in good shape among other things but which is hard to get on an outdoor run without a cadence sensor I don't have.
Treadmill runs do have a couple limitations though. Firstly, The treadmill can only go for so long it would seem. Today my run lasted so long the treadmill stopped being able to track the time and thus shut itself off. Luckily there is a second treadmill I was able to make the migration to and finish my run. The other benefit that outdoor runs have over treadmill running is moving air. As you run outside you get a lot of air moving past you that helps with your cooling and keeps your clothing that little bit drier. That little bit can be important sometimes, and long runs are one of them. (The squeamish should consider to skip this segment) About 7 miles into this run I ran into some problems with jogger's nipple, leading to a small amount of blood loss. Nothing serious of course, just annoying and unexpected. Picked up some roll-on anti-chafing product from RoadRunner down the street and hopefully that should prevent any further issues.
So anyway, what about the numbers? 207, down a pound from last week. Bodyfat about constant so no worries there, no worries just facts of life. Hopefully in a week or two when I can actually get back to my weight training that'll improve more, sadly due to an injury my training partner wasn't able to make it so I stayed content with my running this week to help her recuperate from her burn. Until next week keep being the you you want to be.
Not much to talk about this week so it should stay pretty brief.
Was pretty bad about doing any cooking this week sadly, and next week won't be much better since every night I'm going to be at the movies instead of home. Picked up some protein powder at the store today so that should at least improve the fractionation of my diet a bit.
Decided to do my long run on the treadmill this week. This had a few consequences. I lost more to sweat this week in absolute terms than I have before, despite being inside, which was to be expected really. The treadmill offers me a few nice benefits over running outside. For one, my run ends at the right place every time, no guess work to make sure that I finish my desired distance when I'm back at the apartment instead of half a mile off. As a result of that I also have more freedom to decide while I'm on the run that I feel good and can do another mile or some such, as happened today. It also allows me to focus more on my heartrate than on my pace. Once I find a pace that I can hold for the duration at about the right heart rate I'm set and I can just do my run and hit the zone. Runkeeper does not yet have truly robust support for heart rate sadly, I'd love to see them add better audio cues for heart rate, and the ability to key coaching off of it. The treadmill also let's me take the time to calculate my turnover, which is a number I like tracking to help keep my form in good shape among other things but which is hard to get on an outdoor run without a cadence sensor I don't have.
Treadmill runs do have a couple limitations though. Firstly, The treadmill can only go for so long it would seem. Today my run lasted so long the treadmill stopped being able to track the time and thus shut itself off. Luckily there is a second treadmill I was able to make the migration to and finish my run. The other benefit that outdoor runs have over treadmill running is moving air. As you run outside you get a lot of air moving past you that helps with your cooling and keeps your clothing that little bit drier. That little bit can be important sometimes, and long runs are one of them. (The squeamish should consider to skip this segment) About 7 miles into this run I ran into some problems with jogger's nipple, leading to a small amount of blood loss. Nothing serious of course, just annoying and unexpected. Picked up some roll-on anti-chafing product from RoadRunner down the street and hopefully that should prevent any further issues.
So anyway, what about the numbers? 207, down a pound from last week. Bodyfat about constant so no worries there, no worries just facts of life. Hopefully in a week or two when I can actually get back to my weight training that'll improve more, sadly due to an injury my training partner wasn't able to make it so I stayed content with my running this week to help her recuperate from her burn. Until next week keep being the you you want to be.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 76)
Sunday once again and time for the weekly update.
This week has seen me testing out some fun things, and making a few changes to the routine to accommodate scheduling. Scrapped the Wednesday run since I had to be at work early, and had been out late for a midnight movie with friends, switched my Tuesday treadmill run out for a VO2max test, and my Friday Tempo run out for a Maximum Heart Rate test. Both of those went well. Today I had to scrap my 9-miler due to weather conditions not cooperating with my plans, and I'm working on backup plans for future runs to ensure that I can still get my training miles in even if the weather doesn't want to play nice.
The running is only one aspect of my workouts though, and this week I promised a more detailed explanation of the new resistance training plan I'm working on so here it goes, broken down by the day.
Sunday is abs and full-body circuits. My ab routine goes 1x10 myotatic crunches, 1x10 TVA contractions, 75 two-handed kettlebell swings with a 20 pound kettlebell, and 30-seconds of plank in the pushup position, and on each side. After that my full-body routine is 2 circuits of 20 squats, 10 pushups, 20 lunges (10 each side, alternating), 20 dumbell rows (10 each side), and 30 jumping jacks. Once I get through one round of that I go through a second round, in both cases with as little rest as possible between exercises. Fridays I do the same thing as Sundays to finish off my week.
Monday is Arms/Shoulders, 3x5 of each of modified dips (don't have anything the right height to support me so for now it's basically pushups but facing up instead of down), lateral dumbbell raises (aka Shoulder Flys) superset with bicep curls, and finished off with a machine shoulder press. Wednesday is Legs day, as it's the furthest away from my long runs and I don't have a run on Thursday in my regular rotation. 2x10 of each of squats, lunges, stiff-leg deadlifts, and machine leg curls. The squats and deadlifts here are being done with dumbbells instead of barbells because the equipment I have access to is dumbbells and a weight machine. Thursday is my Chest/Back day, 3x5 each of pushups with my feet on an exercise ball (adding an extra stability element compared to regular pushups and putting more emphasis on my chest than on my legs), pectoral/chest fly, machine chest press, and supinated lat-pulldowns.
Weeks one and two are being used for working out the kinks in the routine and for figuring out appropriate starting weights. After that I'm either going to increase every week provided I hit my rep count, or making the last set of each exercise "to failure" and increase the weight if I can get at least 2 more than the previous sets of the exercise. I'm not sure which option I'll be taking yet but either way the point is clear, keep the weight increasing. When I reach the limits of my equipment I'll have to figure out where to go from there, but when possible it's likely to be toward making the exercises more difficult through leverage disadvantage. Trick will be making sure I keep whatever I do safe.
For now I think that's all I have to say. If you have feedback I'd welcome it, either way it's time for the numbers for today. 208, up a pound from last week and back to where we were sitting for the weeks preceding. Bodyfat is still stabilizing after my measurement recalibration and I'm feeling pretty darned good these days. Until next time, keep being the you you want to be.
This week has seen me testing out some fun things, and making a few changes to the routine to accommodate scheduling. Scrapped the Wednesday run since I had to be at work early, and had been out late for a midnight movie with friends, switched my Tuesday treadmill run out for a VO2max test, and my Friday Tempo run out for a Maximum Heart Rate test. Both of those went well. Today I had to scrap my 9-miler due to weather conditions not cooperating with my plans, and I'm working on backup plans for future runs to ensure that I can still get my training miles in even if the weather doesn't want to play nice.
The running is only one aspect of my workouts though, and this week I promised a more detailed explanation of the new resistance training plan I'm working on so here it goes, broken down by the day.
Sunday is abs and full-body circuits. My ab routine goes 1x10 myotatic crunches, 1x10 TVA contractions, 75 two-handed kettlebell swings with a 20 pound kettlebell, and 30-seconds of plank in the pushup position, and on each side. After that my full-body routine is 2 circuits of 20 squats, 10 pushups, 20 lunges (10 each side, alternating), 20 dumbell rows (10 each side), and 30 jumping jacks. Once I get through one round of that I go through a second round, in both cases with as little rest as possible between exercises. Fridays I do the same thing as Sundays to finish off my week.
Monday is Arms/Shoulders, 3x5 of each of modified dips (don't have anything the right height to support me so for now it's basically pushups but facing up instead of down), lateral dumbbell raises (aka Shoulder Flys) superset with bicep curls, and finished off with a machine shoulder press. Wednesday is Legs day, as it's the furthest away from my long runs and I don't have a run on Thursday in my regular rotation. 2x10 of each of squats, lunges, stiff-leg deadlifts, and machine leg curls. The squats and deadlifts here are being done with dumbbells instead of barbells because the equipment I have access to is dumbbells and a weight machine. Thursday is my Chest/Back day, 3x5 each of pushups with my feet on an exercise ball (adding an extra stability element compared to regular pushups and putting more emphasis on my chest than on my legs), pectoral/chest fly, machine chest press, and supinated lat-pulldowns.
Weeks one and two are being used for working out the kinks in the routine and for figuring out appropriate starting weights. After that I'm either going to increase every week provided I hit my rep count, or making the last set of each exercise "to failure" and increase the weight if I can get at least 2 more than the previous sets of the exercise. I'm not sure which option I'll be taking yet but either way the point is clear, keep the weight increasing. When I reach the limits of my equipment I'll have to figure out where to go from there, but when possible it's likely to be toward making the exercises more difficult through leverage disadvantage. Trick will be making sure I keep whatever I do safe.
For now I think that's all I have to say. If you have feedback I'd welcome it, either way it's time for the numbers for today. 208, up a pound from last week and back to where we were sitting for the weeks preceding. Bodyfat is still stabilizing after my measurement recalibration and I'm feeling pretty darned good these days. Until next time, keep being the you you want to be.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 75)
Sunday once again and time for the weekly update.
Running seems to be progressing smoothly, weight seems to be holding fairly steady, even been sleeping fairly well this past week so all told most of my measurables seem like they are doing pretty well from cursory examination, though the real numbers will hold out for later in the post.
You may recall from a few weeks ago I talked about doing some work on a plan for trying to trying to put on some muscle, one that I was basing on research into workout plans used by various actors to get into shape for movies roles as seriously buff dudes. Looking over the information I could find about what they all did there were a lot of similarities, so piecing those together should in theory give me results as close to theirs as possible with a smaller amount of effort.
Firstly, diet comes into play. Food is at least as important in these kinds of endeavors as the exercise so it pays to start here. Of course, high amounts of protein are a goal, minimal sugars, minimal processed food, and one somewhat strange common factor was restricting carbs to only the earlier portions of the day (and even then usually rice, oatmeal, or tubers). That one seems strange at first but makes some sense when taken into the context of time of day and it's relation to insulin sensitivity and the insulin response of most carbs. The other common factors were that they tended to eat a large number of meals, often eating every 2 hours throughout the day, and usually supplemented with protein powder and/or creatine. These things combined should help me provide a good base for the resistance workouts that form the other pillar of the research, and luckily they don't stray too far from what I'd been striving for already. The more frequent meals help increase the total amount of calories per day without making any single meal too large, which is a trick that may come in handy as things go on.
For the actual lifting the common themes seemed to be using compound exercises for the lifts, to increase the muscle groups activated in the shortest amount of time, 3-5 sets of a moderate number of reps each. The workouts tended toward splits between various body segments, which for now I'm going to try but may end up shifting things around later on, and minimal rest periods to keep heart rate up so that you burn some fat along with the building of muscle. I'm somewhat limited in my workout options due to the resources at my disposal with the fitness center at the apartment here, but hopefully the plan I've put in place should get me at least tolerable results. Once I get bored of this, get to a proportion I like, or stop seeing results from this I already know what I'm going to move to, but that's for later. For now it'll be 2 days a week of circuits and abs (much like I was doing before) on Sunday and Friday, work on the Chest/Back on Monday, Legs on Wednesday, and Arms/Shoulders on Thursday. Next week I'll report back on how the first week played out, and what exercises each day is composed of, but for now I'm going to sign off after the numerical round up.
So what's the scale say this week? 207, down a pound from last week. Not the best, but we'll see what this new plan does for things I suppose. Until next week, be the you you want to be.
Running seems to be progressing smoothly, weight seems to be holding fairly steady, even been sleeping fairly well this past week so all told most of my measurables seem like they are doing pretty well from cursory examination, though the real numbers will hold out for later in the post.
You may recall from a few weeks ago I talked about doing some work on a plan for trying to trying to put on some muscle, one that I was basing on research into workout plans used by various actors to get into shape for movies roles as seriously buff dudes. Looking over the information I could find about what they all did there were a lot of similarities, so piecing those together should in theory give me results as close to theirs as possible with a smaller amount of effort.
Firstly, diet comes into play. Food is at least as important in these kinds of endeavors as the exercise so it pays to start here. Of course, high amounts of protein are a goal, minimal sugars, minimal processed food, and one somewhat strange common factor was restricting carbs to only the earlier portions of the day (and even then usually rice, oatmeal, or tubers). That one seems strange at first but makes some sense when taken into the context of time of day and it's relation to insulin sensitivity and the insulin response of most carbs. The other common factors were that they tended to eat a large number of meals, often eating every 2 hours throughout the day, and usually supplemented with protein powder and/or creatine. These things combined should help me provide a good base for the resistance workouts that form the other pillar of the research, and luckily they don't stray too far from what I'd been striving for already. The more frequent meals help increase the total amount of calories per day without making any single meal too large, which is a trick that may come in handy as things go on.
For the actual lifting the common themes seemed to be using compound exercises for the lifts, to increase the muscle groups activated in the shortest amount of time, 3-5 sets of a moderate number of reps each. The workouts tended toward splits between various body segments, which for now I'm going to try but may end up shifting things around later on, and minimal rest periods to keep heart rate up so that you burn some fat along with the building of muscle. I'm somewhat limited in my workout options due to the resources at my disposal with the fitness center at the apartment here, but hopefully the plan I've put in place should get me at least tolerable results. Once I get bored of this, get to a proportion I like, or stop seeing results from this I already know what I'm going to move to, but that's for later. For now it'll be 2 days a week of circuits and abs (much like I was doing before) on Sunday and Friday, work on the Chest/Back on Monday, Legs on Wednesday, and Arms/Shoulders on Thursday. Next week I'll report back on how the first week played out, and what exercises each day is composed of, but for now I'm going to sign off after the numerical round up.
So what's the scale say this week? 207, down a pound from last week. Not the best, but we'll see what this new plan does for things I suppose. Until next week, be the you you want to be.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 74)
Still Sunday for just a little bit longer.
Today has been a bit hectic and as such I don't have a post prepared for you guys, I might get one together this week sometime, but more than likely I won't and it'll be til next Sunday. For now though, I will update with my weight at least.
208, same as last week. Sticking pretty steady of late, and that's not a bad thing really. Until next time, keep being the you you want to be.
Today has been a bit hectic and as such I don't have a post prepared for you guys, I might get one together this week sometime, but more than likely I won't and it'll be til next Sunday. For now though, I will update with my weight at least.
208, same as last week. Sticking pretty steady of late, and that's not a bad thing really. Until next time, keep being the you you want to be.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 73)
Sunday once again and time for the weekly update.
This week has been pretty steady in terms of most of the things I usually track, so not really much to talk about there.
So, finishing up the breakdown of my running cycle there are 3 other types of runs in addition to the ones I talked about last week. Each one of them is planned to be done in place of either a treadmill run or a timed run, once every three weeks. The cycle for them is setup so that I replace one run a week with one of my specialty runs.
The first run I've completed out of the selection of specialty runs was a tempo run. Once I get the heart rate monitor it'll help dial in the pacing for them a bit better, a pace that sustains 85-90% max heart rate for about 20 minutes. Luckily for me my typical running route is around 3 miles, which means that just tearing into it at a given pace should allow me to complete it in about the right amount of time. This run through I did the run at an average pace of 9:03, which I think was probably fairly close to what I'm after here based on what I have come to understand of the process, but without some harder numbers I'm not entirely sure. For now, I'll just shoot for improving the pace in small increments until I either get the monitor to check for sure, or I find a threshold at which I just can't pull it off anymore at which point I can reasonably infer I passed my lactic acid threshold by too far. The purpose of these runs is mainly to increase my bodies ability to process lactic acid and prevent my leg muscles from becoming acidic over the course of my long runs, but also to help me train for keeping a consistent pace across a distance.
The second type of specialty run I'm working on adding in is the hill run. Hill training is something I want to incorporate because I don't like it. This may sound odd, but I don't like it because it's harder than my regular running so by doing hill running I get better at it which will come in handy during races, and for increasing all of the various running related metrics. This run will take place on my treadmill day so that I can control the grade of the hills in addition to their length. My plan is that I'll do a quick warm-up, followed by alternating 2-3 minute sets at either 2% grade, or whatever I settle on my higher grade being. I'm not sure what it will be yet, though it'll probably start closer to 6-8% and then move up as time goes on with these workouts. I'll keep up the repeats for 15-30 minutes, a quick cooldown and then be done with the run for the day.
The last of the specialty runs is a type of training called Fartlek, which means "speed play" in Swedish. Basically you do your warm-up, then you pick a landmark and run to it at a fast pace, somewhere between "sort of hard work" and "full sprint" and then you run past there at an easy pace to recover before doing the whole thing again. It's an unstructured type of interval workout that works on improving speed, acceleration, and overall response of the various energy systems in place in the body. I'll likely do these with 5 minute bookends to warm-up/cool-down and then run my normal timed route using the random intervals outlined above.
So there you have it, my 3 specialty runs to flesh out my 3 week training cycle. Now from there onto the numbers for this week. 208, same as last week. Weight seems to have stabilized, and now that I've recalibrated how I'm measuring bodyfat that seems to have stabilized as well. One of these days I'm going to have to upgrade to something automated for that task if I want to start getting better numbers. Until next week, keep on being the you you want to be.
This week has been pretty steady in terms of most of the things I usually track, so not really much to talk about there.
So, finishing up the breakdown of my running cycle there are 3 other types of runs in addition to the ones I talked about last week. Each one of them is planned to be done in place of either a treadmill run or a timed run, once every three weeks. The cycle for them is setup so that I replace one run a week with one of my specialty runs.
The first run I've completed out of the selection of specialty runs was a tempo run. Once I get the heart rate monitor it'll help dial in the pacing for them a bit better, a pace that sustains 85-90% max heart rate for about 20 minutes. Luckily for me my typical running route is around 3 miles, which means that just tearing into it at a given pace should allow me to complete it in about the right amount of time. This run through I did the run at an average pace of 9:03, which I think was probably fairly close to what I'm after here based on what I have come to understand of the process, but without some harder numbers I'm not entirely sure. For now, I'll just shoot for improving the pace in small increments until I either get the monitor to check for sure, or I find a threshold at which I just can't pull it off anymore at which point I can reasonably infer I passed my lactic acid threshold by too far. The purpose of these runs is mainly to increase my bodies ability to process lactic acid and prevent my leg muscles from becoming acidic over the course of my long runs, but also to help me train for keeping a consistent pace across a distance.
The second type of specialty run I'm working on adding in is the hill run. Hill training is something I want to incorporate because I don't like it. This may sound odd, but I don't like it because it's harder than my regular running so by doing hill running I get better at it which will come in handy during races, and for increasing all of the various running related metrics. This run will take place on my treadmill day so that I can control the grade of the hills in addition to their length. My plan is that I'll do a quick warm-up, followed by alternating 2-3 minute sets at either 2% grade, or whatever I settle on my higher grade being. I'm not sure what it will be yet, though it'll probably start closer to 6-8% and then move up as time goes on with these workouts. I'll keep up the repeats for 15-30 minutes, a quick cooldown and then be done with the run for the day.
The last of the specialty runs is a type of training called Fartlek, which means "speed play" in Swedish. Basically you do your warm-up, then you pick a landmark and run to it at a fast pace, somewhere between "sort of hard work" and "full sprint" and then you run past there at an easy pace to recover before doing the whole thing again. It's an unstructured type of interval workout that works on improving speed, acceleration, and overall response of the various energy systems in place in the body. I'll likely do these with 5 minute bookends to warm-up/cool-down and then run my normal timed route using the random intervals outlined above.
So there you have it, my 3 specialty runs to flesh out my 3 week training cycle. Now from there onto the numbers for this week. 208, same as last week. Weight seems to have stabilized, and now that I've recalibrated how I'm measuring bodyfat that seems to have stabilized as well. One of these days I'm going to have to upgrade to something automated for that task if I want to start getting better numbers. Until next week, keep on being the you you want to be.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 72)
Sunday yet again, time for the weekly update.
Mileage is increasing steadily, run today was over half of my current single week record, with todays run being over half of my first stage goal distance.
So, what exactly am I doing with all this running you may wonder. Well, it's actually a fairly carefully constructed running program I've cobbled together from various other training programs I've found online ranging from Jeff Galloway's Run/Walk/Run program for people shooting for completion of a Half-Marathon to programs designed to achieve specific time goals for Half-Marathons. I've looked them all over, and done a decent amount of independent research into various training options and strategies, and put together the program I'm using now, and the one I'm going to transition myself into in the next few weeks.
Currently I'm using two timed runs each at a total duration of 30 minutes, 20 minutes of intervals (80% "up", 20% "down") and a 5 minute warm-up and cool-down on either side; and a single long run each week run with 5 minutes warm-up/cool-down on either side of mile repeats (80% "up" 20 "down") for the target distance of the week. The immediate goal of the timed runs is to improve my pace and thus the distance per run. The immediate goal of the long run is to increase my distance running ability progressively, by adding a mile to the distance each week, until I reach my current target distance of 12 miles. After that I'm going to decrease the long run to 10 miles a week for a while as I work on improving my pace on the 10-milers. Sporadically I'll increase the long run up past the 12 miles I went to originally, in steps and then back down to 10 again to keep working on pace. The goal of all this being to get myself to a point where I can easily run the race distance in a reasonable pace.
In addition to that I currently do a weekly treadmill run of 3 minutes at what I have tested as my VO2max, the threshold at which exercise becomes more anaerobic than aerobic, and 3 minutes at 50% thereof. Repeats of that for most of the workout duration are designed to increase the threshold, and I increase both the high and the low speeds on those workouts progressively to ensure I keep improving. At the end of those workouts I turn the speed on the treadmill up to see how fast I can run for 30 seconds continuously. Another metric I track during these runs, because there are fewer other things to distract me than most runs, is my turnover. I pick a minute, of my 3 minute up interval, and count how many times my feet hit the ground. The idea being that the more times they hit the ground, the further distance I can cover in the interval at the same stride length, and since my barefoot running style means that my stride length falls within a certain range that I can't change all that much, increasing turnover is the best way for me to gain speed.
Well, that went on a bit longer than expected, so I guess I shall save until next week the changes I plan to make to my running schedule to turn a weekly cycle into a 3 week cycle with even more vectors for improving my running efficiency and capacity.
So, what about the scale this week. 208, down a pound from last week. With the sadly low percentage of my diet composed of protein right now I'm not all that surprised by the thinning out my increase in running seems to be contributing too. My bodyfat seems to be holding pretty stable, which means I am sadly losing some muscle mass along with fat, but I'm working on plans to change that. So stay tuned. Always be the you you want to be.
Mileage is increasing steadily, run today was over half of my current single week record, with todays run being over half of my first stage goal distance.
So, what exactly am I doing with all this running you may wonder. Well, it's actually a fairly carefully constructed running program I've cobbled together from various other training programs I've found online ranging from Jeff Galloway's Run/Walk/Run program for people shooting for completion of a Half-Marathon to programs designed to achieve specific time goals for Half-Marathons. I've looked them all over, and done a decent amount of independent research into various training options and strategies, and put together the program I'm using now, and the one I'm going to transition myself into in the next few weeks.
Currently I'm using two timed runs each at a total duration of 30 minutes, 20 minutes of intervals (80% "up", 20% "down") and a 5 minute warm-up and cool-down on either side; and a single long run each week run with 5 minutes warm-up/cool-down on either side of mile repeats (80% "up" 20 "down") for the target distance of the week. The immediate goal of the timed runs is to improve my pace and thus the distance per run. The immediate goal of the long run is to increase my distance running ability progressively, by adding a mile to the distance each week, until I reach my current target distance of 12 miles. After that I'm going to decrease the long run to 10 miles a week for a while as I work on improving my pace on the 10-milers. Sporadically I'll increase the long run up past the 12 miles I went to originally, in steps and then back down to 10 again to keep working on pace. The goal of all this being to get myself to a point where I can easily run the race distance in a reasonable pace.
In addition to that I currently do a weekly treadmill run of 3 minutes at what I have tested as my VO2max, the threshold at which exercise becomes more anaerobic than aerobic, and 3 minutes at 50% thereof. Repeats of that for most of the workout duration are designed to increase the threshold, and I increase both the high and the low speeds on those workouts progressively to ensure I keep improving. At the end of those workouts I turn the speed on the treadmill up to see how fast I can run for 30 seconds continuously. Another metric I track during these runs, because there are fewer other things to distract me than most runs, is my turnover. I pick a minute, of my 3 minute up interval, and count how many times my feet hit the ground. The idea being that the more times they hit the ground, the further distance I can cover in the interval at the same stride length, and since my barefoot running style means that my stride length falls within a certain range that I can't change all that much, increasing turnover is the best way for me to gain speed.
Well, that went on a bit longer than expected, so I guess I shall save until next week the changes I plan to make to my running schedule to turn a weekly cycle into a 3 week cycle with even more vectors for improving my running efficiency and capacity.
So, what about the scale this week. 208, down a pound from last week. With the sadly low percentage of my diet composed of protein right now I'm not all that surprised by the thinning out my increase in running seems to be contributing too. My bodyfat seems to be holding pretty stable, which means I am sadly losing some muscle mass along with fat, but I'm working on plans to change that. So stay tuned. Always be the you you want to be.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 71)
Sunday once again and time for the weekly update.
Weight has been trending a little low this week so we’ll have to see what comes of that later on in the post.
The ups and downs with my weight, especially when my daily calorie intake is taken into question along with other factors, has lead me to the conclusion it is probably time to look into changing up my nutritional composition again. I’m thinking something similar to the Primal Experiment from January.
This time around, due in part to my increasing running mileage, I’m going to be keeping some more carbs in my diet, but I think I’m going to limit them to rice, and tubers. Other than that to flesh out some calories and load up for my long runs I’m going to be trying to keep to lean meat, veggies, nuts, seeds, and some fruit like before. It’s tasty, it’s not bad for me, and if my research pans out to be true may actually improve my times in addition to helping me lean out and put on some muscle.
The other thing that’s been tumbling around in my mind of late is trying to see what I can do about putting on some more muscle and seeing what I can do about some abs. So far it looks like my 6-minute abs is having at least some impact on my gut, and the circuits that I’ve been using to accompany it are doing pretty well all around as well. So, with some inspiration from going to watch Thor, I found the best information I could about a number of celebrity transformations for movie roles, Hemsworth for Thor, Bale for Batman, Craig for Bond, Butler for Leonidas, etc. I’ve been comparing what I could find about what they did to prepare for the roles, and there are a lot of similarities in their methods. Exactly what similarities I noted I’ll save for next week, but suffice to say I think that with a little work and some dedication I think I can probably replicate at least some measure of the results, albeit reduced because I don’t have 6 hours a day to work out and a staff of dietitians, trainers, and chefs to keep everything about me humming along smoothly. With what I do have though I think I can probably get good results, though it’ll take me longer than it did for the celebs.
Well, further details on that to come later, for now though let’s take a look at the numbers shall we? 209, down a pound from last week. So as I suspected, I dropped a bit over the week, but with some increased caloric intake I think I can remedy the losses with some more muscle. Body fat is down, if only slightly, so at least the spread is moving in the right direction even when the needle itself isn't. Until next week, keep working toward being the you you want to be.
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