Category: Training Log

Training Log – Week 42 (2018)

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Another green week! It was harder to maintain the streak early this week, as I overslept on Tuesday morning, and had a couple of two-a-days. But a holiday on Friday allowed me to make it all up.

Ankle and lower calf started to hurt after a somewhat high intensity run on Wednesday. Had to nurse it through the week by (1) massaging the Achilles myself (2) some foam rolling (3) lots of heel and calf stretches on the edge of a step. A rest day and a swim session coming up early in the coming week – so hopefully the rest and some more stretching will help me get back to normal.

I successfully tracked a lot of my food intake this week using myfitnesspal. I don’t trust that it’s very accurate, but like a weighing scale, I think it allows me to compare one day with another. Since I’ve been aware of the need to log it, I’ve also been more conscious of my food intake through the day. Even so, the odd meal out and some mindless eating result in huge spikes.

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It’s also really driven home the point that the calories I burn as part of my training are the only reason I can stay in reasonable shape despite the caloric spikes. Of course, this also explains the rate at which I put on weight (and girth!) when I stop my training even for a few weeks – like when I broke my collarbone earlier or the vacation in Aug/Sep.

The week ahead is a recovery week, so I’ll focus on:

  1. Resting, stretching and eliminating the pain in my leg
  2. Doing a 20 min FTP test on the bike
  3. Continuing to track my food intake to see if I can stabilize it

On to week 4.

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Training Log – Week 41 (2018)

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Week 2 didn’t start very well – had a cold (sneezes, runny nose… the works). So, I took a day and a half off to try to recover quickly and not let it linger. Given that I needed to travel for work, and this is early in the training block, I didn’t want a sustained, low-grade malaise bothering me. And it seemed to work well. By Wednesday afternoon, I felt better and I finished the second half of the week strong.

The training is still pretty light, and while the runs are a little harder I am actually looking forward to a harder overall load. I’m tweaking little things on my run (and run prep) and what I’ve seen this week is that:

  1. Not eating anything before the run that could give me a heartburn is proving to be effective. Even when I do runs a bit later in the morning (10am, 28 deg C), I didn’t have any heartburn and didn’t feel out-of-breath.
  2. I’ve typically never used any race nutrition while training. This week, I actually used some Gu Chomps before my ROTB and Sunday run and felt strong. Not sure if the two are related in any way, but I’ll try it some more and report.
  3. I missed my only swim for the week, and am a little worried that I’m losing touch with my weakest discipline. I’ll see how this week’s swim feels.
  4. The rides were actually quite comfortable, and didn’t feel like I was being pushed. I’ll try to do an FTP test this week and see how I match up to a few months ago.
  5. Doing a relatively easy trainer ride on Saturday meant that I was much fresher for the ROTB and could match the planned pace. Last week, I pushed a little harder on the bike and the run felt much harder (heavy legs!)

My #1 focus for this week is on what I eat. I have a strong suspicion that it is the biggest thing holding back my fitness, training and overall health. All the training won’t help if I eat poorly. This week, I’ll monitor my intake, and mainly watch my snacking.

On to Week 3.

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Training Log – Week 40 (2018)

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New month. Start of a new block of training. Run-focused block with the aim of dropping my time for the run, and being able to run a 4:30 – 4:40/km half marathon. If this is achieved, then hopefully a HM time of 1:45 within a 70.3 tri will be achievable.

It’s always nice to see all green on TP. Of course, this was week 1 after a bit of a break, and I wasn’t traveling. So it’ll be much harder in the coming weeks when the training load picks up, and work/travel start to get in the way much more. But for now, I’ll take this good start.

A few things I learned:
1. Running late in the day (even if my last meal was a few hours ago) tends to give me a heartburn. This probably has more to do with what I’m doing than the time of the day. Also, the motivation needed to get out of the door for an evening run is much, much higher.
2. The tiny brick session (just a 70 min indoor ride followed by a 5km run) was surprisingly hard – because it’s been nearly 2 months since I did such a session. Also, the difference between a straightforward (just turning the legs over) run off the bike and a reasonable tempo run is quite stark.
3. An evening ride followed by a tempo run in the morning is not that easy. It’s probably good to simulate some tired legs, but I definitely hadn’t recovered enough. This likely also means that my overall fitness is low. As I get fitter, I’m hoping my recovery time will also get better.
4. I’ll have to work on dropping some of my excess weight if I have to get better at the run.

On to week 2.

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