Half Marathon Training - Week 5

What a rough week for training. So much going on with home searching and my cat being sick again. However, I have good news on all three fronts; 1) Found a house and made an offer!!!!!!!!! 2) Cat is improving 3) Still got in some good training last week and this week should be a good one.

Swimming
I wasn't able to get in any swim sessions.

Cycling
Because my legs were hurting my Sunday, I swapped my long run with a long ride. It wasn't really as long or intense as I would want, but I was riding with my Dad and I am trying to help build up his conditioning so we can do a century ride in late September. The ride felt really good, although my new bike shorts were giving me some issues in the nether regions because the chamois was really bulky. I am used to tri-shorts with the ultra-thin chamois. Oh well, another thing to get used to.

Running
I only got in one run early in the week. I wasn't feeling really well and was exhausted. I still got in the run though. At some points I had to walk for 30 seconds because I was having trouble breathing. I am not happy I had to skip my long run this week either, but I will be good this upcoming week.

Strength
I got in two of the three NTC sessions in. I literally was not around long enough over the weekend, aside from my bike ride, to get in the third session. I am kind of bummed, because it was one of my favorite NTC routines; The Descent. I will keep trying to force myself to get all of my strength sessions completed each week though. The more sessions I am getting the better I am feeling during cardio workouts and the quicker I recover.

Nutrition
I was able to get almost everything logged during the week. Even though I didn't log the weekend, I still did pretty well with portions and calories. Sunday I had two cupcakes from Wegmans though, but I have no regrets because oh man are the delicious! Plus I rarely eat them.

Final Thoughts
Basically family overrode my time for exercising, and that's about the only excuse I accept. I shouldn't have anything major this week and the weather looks to be great, although super hot, and I hope to get all of my workouts in. Have a great week!

Building Plan: Week 15 Complete

Another week down! It was a crazy week and I was not home much and my work schedule prevented me from working out at lunch time. However, I was still diligent and got a good amount of workouts in. What is most important is that I didn't miss my strength sessions. My goal for the upcoming week is to not miss any runs, but we shall see, because with any luck I'll be dealing with potentially new home stuff.

Swimming
No time for swimming again. This is still a point of frustration, but my schedule has not permitted me to get to a pool. To make matters worse, I am not sure I'll get to the pool this upcoming week either. I am sure going to try though.

Cycling
I was able to get a cadence ride in last night. I was nervous about doing this because I didn't want to be too exhausted for my strength session. That was silly, because of course I was, but I pushed through and did awesome with my strength session. Also, I am feeling more comfortable than I expected with my new resistance at 90 RPM. I didn't expect to be increasing this for another week or two, but I will be increasing this week.

Running
Although I did not get more than 1 full cadence session in, I still ran 3 times. I have gone back to doing warm-up cardio before my strength sessions. Therefore I was able to get in two 10 minute runs. My cadence was alright for both. With the strength sessions, my legs have been a bit more tired, so it's been tougher to get the turnover I need. This is alright though because my average SPM is increasing even though my legs are tired, showing my strength is improving.

Strength
I hit all of my NTC workouts this week. I feel amazing after doing them, and I keep seeing great improvements in functional strength, mobility, and muscle strength.

Nutrition
I logged almost 100% of everything I ate this week. This was challenging because I didn't always make good decisions; whether it be from stress, needing something quick and easy, or just giving into cravings. However, getting almost everything logged helped me mentally a lot, so I am going to keep focusing on that and with any luck, over the next few weeks my bad habits should start to decrease considerably. On a really good note, my soda consumption is down exponentially! I am no longer drinking or craving Pepsi Max, only drinking Coke Zero when I have Rum and Cokes (a couple times a week), and having a ginger ale when my stomach is upset (this seriously works wonders for me).

Final Thoughts
Overall I am seeing improvements each week. My strength sessions are really having positive effects on all of my cardio workouts. I look forward to keeping up this momentum and once my life schedule isn't as hectic, I'll be able to fit in more cardio sessions.

Building Plan: Week 14 Complete

Week 14 was an interesting week. Although I started out trying to get back into my routine, I found myself not as motivated as usual. I dropped back 2 training plan weeks, and my first run of the week went well. However, my second run was horrible. I had been extra tired and sore from my prior strength day, and knew I should have just done a warm-up run only, followed by a more relaxed strength session. However, I did not do this and could not complete my run. Plus I was so exhausted I did no additional workouts. The following day I had an awesome strength session, but took off Sunday because I just wasn't feeling it. Overall, a decent workout week in regards to consistency, but not too well in regards to success of all sessions. In addition, my nutrition, which I did not log a lot of my meal details, was horrible.

Swimming

I did not have time to get to the pool this week. I really intended to get 2-3 sessions, but my schedule ended up being much different than expected. I am not sure next week is going to be much better, but I am going to make sure I get at least 1 session in.

Cycling

I only completed 1 of my trainer sessions. I had planned on 2, but I did not have time for a double on Saturday, and strength training is more important right now.

Running

I got 2 of my 3 sessions in this week. My first session went extremely well. Despite that though, my heart rate and recovery time was much higher than usual. My second run went horribly. I knew going in that I should skip that day with how I felt; extra tired and severe leg muscle tightness. I tried doing some stretching beforehand, but my run was rough from the get-go. I was not able to complete my planned run, as my foot started acting up. I did not even attempt my third run for the week because my foot was only just starting to feel well again and I decided I wanted a few more days for it to get back to 100%.

Strength

I got in ALL of my strength sessions this week! I was extremely excited about this. I have been slacking the past month or so, only getting a max of 2 strength sessions per week. This was unacceptable, especially since my focus is rebuilding strength. I will continue meeting all of my strength sessions each week.

Nutrition

Not much to say on this. I did horrible with eating, and even worse with keeping track of it in my log. I am focused to change this though, which has been an issue for me for a long time now. I am expecting a really good week of tracking and hopefully sticking close to or right on my caloric goals.

Final Thoughts

I had a rough week mentally and with things going on in my life. This upcoming week is going to be even rougher, but I am determined to not let this get me down and I am going to make sure I press on and get everything done. On a positive note, I am now registered, with my wife as well, for the 2018 Disney Dopey Challenge. I am very excited and can't wait for this. I am going to shoot for at least a half marathon later this summer or early fall. If time, budget, and conditioning permit, I might even shoot for a marathon.

Building Plan: Week 9 Complete

Another solid week of workouts. I had some extra muscle soreness during the week, so I had to take 2 rest days, but aside from that, I did really well with my workouts. I also did much better with nutrition and logging my meals. I am really pleased with my continued progress.

Swimming

I still have not been able to find time yet to get more swims into my schedule. As my body gets used to my actual planned training schedule demands and my cat gets healthier, I will be able to schedule more time to swim. I was able to get in one swim in this week, although it was short and intended to both push myself after already being exhausted from my run, as well as act as a shake-out to aid in recovery. And it served its purpose perfectly! As I am writing this, I feel amazing. And that was just after a tiny 4 x 100 yd swim. Although, that swim felt like a nightmare though. I was struggling to rotate my arms and kick my legs. I had wanted to get in at least 800-1200 yds, but I had to stop because I felt like I was going to pass out.

Cycling

I got in no cycling this week. It fell on the 2 days I needed to take as rest days. This is fine, however, as my reason for cycling right now is to just cycle and lightly work on cadence.

Running

I got in all three runs! I am so pumped about this. I am also psyched that I did fairly well. I was a bit disappointed that my cadence was so much lower than I really wanted it to be, but that is why my plan is designed to extend an extra week or so if needed. I am expecting my cadence to get closer to my range during Week 10. One thing I am noticing though is that the increased speed and duration are starting to see some strain on my knees. However, it only occurs when I drag my leg back in my kick-back for my stride. This shows a breakdown in my form and thankfully is easy to immediately correct. Once my cadence training is over, I will be starting to adjust the treadmill to incline of 0.5, and then to 1 to more closely mimic the resistance of self-propelling myself forward when running outside on a flat course or track. This might actually be a good article to explain in more detail later.

Strength

I got in 2 out of 3 sessions in this week. I had to skip my 3rd because I had used that as a rest day. My first session of the week was highly focused on legs. And man did that wreck me. I literally could not do a single thing on Tuesday, as my legs were shot. Not going to lie, it was a glorious feeling. I am so excited my legs are slowly getting stronger and I love pushing myself to the max. My second session was mostly hip and back stretches mixed with core strength. I also did a fitness test for my program. It was supposed to take 5 minutes, and it took me 15 and I was having trouble breathing. These fit tests are brutal. I was supposed to end with another leg focus routine, but I was too exhausted from my Friday run. I am going to repeat this program, as it is working really well. I am hoping one more 4 week session of this body weight program and I will be able to start moving to weighted routines.

Nutrition

I logged my meals every day! I didn't really meet my goals much, but I didn't really care about this. I am a stress eater and with the constant trips to the vet hospital every day, I am not going to remove my outlet right now. Once my cat is well, I will be working on changing my stress outlet to something more productive and beneficial.

Sleep

I am adding this section because it's so important. However, my sleep is awful. I have pretty much been passing out from mental exhaustion and my sleep quality is horrible. I don't expect this to change until my cat is better.

Final Thoughts

I going to be shooting for 3/3 for both strength and running for Week 10. Also going to be making sure to keep up with my food logging. Hope everyone is doing well with their goals!

Building Plan: Week 4 Complete

What a week! Had to be at the hospital a bunch for my cat, so I missed some workouts. However, I got most of my other planned workouts in. I even got myself back in the pool! My eating suffered a lot though.

Strength
I only got in 1 full strength session. I got a partial session in as well, but it was more stretching than anything, as I was completely wrecked from my Thursday cadence run. It was my first real attempt at my Week 3/4 cadence plan. I definitely went too fast on the treadmill. But I'll get into this shortly. Anyway, my strength session was a monster! I had a faster-than-usual warm-up run, so I started my strength session at a fairly elevated heart rate. This session was also continuous sets-focused, so my heart rate stayed rather elevated, with points where I was hitting close to max HR. I had to lay down and foam roll for a good 10 minutes after. Sadly, this was my only real strength workout, which I am extremely disappointed about, as my main focus is improving my strength. This will not happen again!

Running
So, my first attempt at the Cadence Week 3/4 plan was the day after my above strength session. My legs were not fully recovered from that session, but I did the run anyway. I set a whole bunch of PR's, but almost passed out after my run from pushing myself to the absolute max. Happily though, I am pushing myself to my limits, but not going over. I need to keep being vigilant of my form, as I will easily get injured at this level of training. I did my second run over the weekend, on Sunday instead of Saturday. Although I was exhausted, it went much better than my prior run. I was able to maintain a higher belt speed for all 3 intervals while maintaining close to my goal cadence. However, my HR is still way too high and my average cadence is not at 180 yet. Therefore, I will be continuing my Week 3/4 cadence running into Week 5. I could technically move to Week 4/5, but I am not trying to build as quickly as possible...I am trying to make major gains that will stick.

Cycling
I had a nice leg-loosening session the day after my first run. It was pure awfulness, but I felt so much better later that day and especially the following day. I am making it my mission that I never miss some sort of shake-out workout after an intense workout day because this will promote faster healing and recovery. Sadly, I did not get in my long trainer ride.

Swimming
I finally got in the pool. I did this after my 2nd run session, which was Sunday. I swam 800 yards...which felt like 10 miles and I thought I was in the pool for a couple hours. I did 100 WU, 3 x 200, then 100 CD. I needed a full 60 seconds rest between each set. I honestly can't remember the last time I swam and it felt that tough for swimming so little. But guess what? I felt amazing when I got home and today I feel almost 100%. I cannot emphasize how much proper cross training is helping me.

Final Thoughts
I am going to keep trying to be more consistent with my workout volume. I altered my plan a little to be more realistic with my schedule. I am hoping I will be able to succeed more now. I don't think I need another 3 run sessions of the Week 3/4 Cadence plan, but I am going to get them done for good measure. As a note, I am down to a 6:08 mile now!!!!! With my walks between intervals, I am also at a 22:07 5k as well. However, I am not really counting this 5k pace until I can do a 5k with no stops.

My eating is still amazingly awful and I have not only regained all of my lost weight, but I am up a couple pounds again. I am not too worried about it though, as this is still not my major focus yet. Hope everyone is working hard with their goals!

Building Plan: Week 3 Complete

I hope everyone had a wonderful and happy Thanksgiving! I was cooking up a storm for my family. It always amazes me how much better 100% home-made is versus anything else. I made some good progress in my prior weeks and lost a good bit a weight. Just in time for the feasting, lol. I am not looking forward to my upcoming weigh-in. No matter, I had wonderful times with my family and can get back to my usual eating again. In regards to working out, my goal was to not miss anything because of the holiday week. Well, I went and hurt my neck which prevented me from doing some workouts. However, I did make some excellent progress despite that.

 

Strength

I got 2 of my 3 strength sessions completed. However, the one session was more just stretching and a little bit of body weight routines. I am still seeing significant improvements in my strength. In addition, I am seeing some improved mobility and flexibility. Still nothing to write home about, but I’ll take any gains.

Running

I had a PR this week! During one of my runs, I got a 6:34 mile!!!!! I was so excited. I am also feeling slightly less winded and tired during and right after my runs. I am excited my endurance is finally building back up. I am starting my week 3/4 of my running training. I hope I can do it!

Cross Training

I still have yet to get myself back into the pool. I hope to change that this week, even if I only make it once. I got in one trainer session. It was alright, but it was more just to get my legs loose. With my neck bothering me, I couldn’t get anymore done. My brother has me doing some stretches that are slowly helping.

Final Thoughts

For Week 4 I am hoping to keep increasing my consistency and getting more workouts in. I am not too worried about my eating as I have gotten rid of most of the leftovers, so this week will be mostly back to normal eating. I do need to make sure I keep up with my food tracking though. Hope everyone is doing well with their goals!

Choosing a Health and Fitness Ecosystem - Part 3 - How Calories Burned is Determined

How Calories Burned is Determined

If you have ever done a side-by-side comparison of 2 devices that can calculate your calories burned, either throughout your day or for an activity, then you noticed that they gave anywhere from slightly to dramatically different results. My favorite example is when I was comparing FitBit Charge HR, Garmin 920xt with HRM strap, and non-HR FitBit Flex. The activity was a 30 minute run on the treadmill at a 10 min pace. My burn with Garmin was about 260 calories. The FitBit Charge was just under 280. The Flex was just over 310. So if I was trying to lose weight, and I was relying just on the Flex, I would have thought I could eat over 50 more calories...which is a super yummy snack. That's not good. However, it's not totally bad either and I will explain why.

The Flaw of Caloric Burn

Despite what all of the fitness sites will tell you, heart tracking for determining calorie burn is flawed in so many ways. For example, heart rate monitors are designed to work in an optimal condition of elevated heart rate for a period of time. So, for people who do strength training, caloric burn result will typically be wrong. I am not going into the full details of this, because it's not relevant for this article, but know that your body is a complex machine and it burns calories different based on how your muscles and cardiovascular system are engaged.

I am not saying to throw out your calorie burn results; but I am saying you need to understand that results are based on usually complex equations that are still flawed, because every person's body burns calories a little bit different from the next.

HRM vs. Non-HRM

I am not trying to pick on FitBit, but they are the easiest to use for this example. We are going to use the FitBit Flex and FitBit Charge HR for this segment. Devices and formulas have advanced very far these days, so non-HRM devices that show calories have dramatically improved over time.

Quick disclaimer: I won't be posting any exact formulas because I am not well-versed in the legal jargon that the various companies have around their proprietary formulas, and since I figured out a bunch of them, I fear posting them would put me in trouble. That said, however, I will post what typically goes into the calculations.

At the very basic fitness tracker level, meaning Non-HRM, it will take into account, your age, height, weight, and steps. Most will use your gender as well. Moving up the list for Non-HRM, some have average caloric burns in addition to the various data I already mentioned. Some will even go as far as to then see your averages and adjust accordingly. However, this gets very inaccurate since it needs heart rate.

So, Heart Rate Monitors. The most basic will take into account your age, weight, and heart rate from the activity. It doesn't care about steps, gender, etc. As you can guess, the more advanced keep adding more variables to get a more accurate picture of caloric expenditure. In addition, devices that have the ability to track heart rate (HR) all day, have different formulas than that of a physical activity. So if you don't workout or overexert yourself, it will use one formula to determine your full day calorie burn. If you also exercise or do some activity that raises your heart rate to a certain level or higher, then it will use a different formula, and then add those 2 values together. The devices know to not count workout time into the overall daily burn, since you would get over-inflated results.

In addition, most of the new HRM's and their fitness device (can be separate or the same device) will watch for patterns and adjust the burns as your fitness improves. For example, if I start running for the first time, and I am a bit overweight, my heart rate is going to be higher, and I am going to see a pretty decent calorie burn from a run. Maybe a couple months later after I have lost some weight and my cardiovascular system has more endurance and is more efficient, I might only be burning a fraction of the calories for the same effort.

What Do I Choose?

Despite the above probably being confusing, the decision on whether or not to get an activity tracker or fitness device that can track heart rate is fairly simple. If you aren't someone who counts calories, doesn't care about calories, or you aren't doing any sort of activity or training that you need heart rate data, then there is no reason to get a device that tracks heart rate. Nice and simple, right?

Summary

\In conclusion, many people who just want a device to help keep them active, track activities, or to claim some work or insurance incentives, do not need a device with heart rate tracking capabilities. However, if you don't fall into those categories, you will probably want one; you might not use it right away, but you will. Up next I will be doing a long series of discussing the good, the bad, and the ugly of the various ecosystems out there.

Polar FT40 Review

I have had my Polar FT40 for about 3 years now. I purchased it for 2 reasons; 1) It was one of the few watches out at the time that had great reviews on overall accuracy of calorie expenditure during a workout and 2) It was Polar, so I knew the heart rate tracking was going to be very accurate and I could train in zones. Now, the FT40 does not have specific zone training settings, so this was a manual effort; I really only cared if my heart rate went too high. I also wanted a watch that was designed to be able to track fat vs. cardio; basically meaning that I wanted to figure out approximate calorie burn when I was doing weight lifting or HIIT workouts, in addition to my cardio workouts.

Watch Functions and Setup

When I bought the watch, it came with the manual, software installation CD, heart rate strap, heart rate monitor, USB sync dock, and the watch. I had to setup the watch first, since part of the software installation process was to sync the watch to the software. Watch setup was very easy; you put in your gender, height, weight, date of birth, and activity level, and set the time and date.

For more options from the main screen, press the bottom right button. The first option is settings. Now press the right middle button. Here are the Training Settings:

1. Training Sounds
• Off, Soft, Loud, Very Loud
• Pick whichever you want. When I used to listen to music, I turned the sound off, but since I don't usually listen to music now, I usually set the noise to Loud, which is usually a good volume to hear over gym noise or a treadmill motor.
2. Heart Rate View
• Beats Per Minutes or Percent of Maximum
• I do BPM because I don't train based on % of max, but if you do, you can
3. HeartTouch
• The Polar explanation says it better than I can: "When HeartTouch is on, different training information during training can be accessed without pressing buttons, for instance, when gloves make pressing buttons difficult, by bringing your training computer close to your transmitter."
• I personally use it so I can keep session duration displayed on the watch, and then when I want to see what time it is, instead of scrolling through the displays, which is a pain, I just move the watch near the heart rate monitor, and the time will be displayed.
• Per the manual and my usage, HeartTouch only displays the time, and no other display values...HeartTouch is either On or Off.
4. Heart Rate Upper Limit
• This value is set based on your personal info when you first setup the watch. However, if you are in amazing cardio shape, your max HR may be a lot higher. Therefore, you can change this if you know your max HR is different.

Other options on the main selection menu after Settings are Fitness Test and Data. You can read below about Fitness Test. For Data, you get some nice options:

1. Training Files
• Starts with most recent workout
• Displayed date, time of workout, duration of workout
• Press the right middle button to see details
• Calories
• This is your calories burned during the workout
• Cal. Fat
• This is the fat percentage of calories burned
• Average
• Average Heart Rate during session
• Maximum
• Maximum Heart Rate during session
• Fat Burn
• Amount of time you were in the fat burning zone
• This time is usually higher during low intensity workouts, such as strength training
• Fitness
• Amount of time you were in the fitness zone (or cardiovascular zone)
• Typically for runs, biking, or other purely cardio workouts, most of your session time will appear here.
2. Week Summaries
• Shows current week first
• Graph shows activity level of selected week vs. other weeks
• Pressing the middle right button, you can see the details for that week
• Duration (overall for all sessions)
• Calories (total from all sessions)
• Sessions (total sessions for week)
3. Totals since (when you first started using the watch)
• This is a really awesome feature, as you can see how awesome you are
• The one problem is that the max Duration time is 99 hour, 59 minutes, so although it will keep adding sessions and calories, your Duration will stop at 99h:59m
• Displays Duration, Sessions, and Calories
4. Delete Files
• Deletes your currently stored files...if your storage is full and you need to do a workout, you may need to do this
5. Reset Week Summaries
• Same as Delete files
6. Reset Totals
• Same as Delete files
• This is good to use if you are trying to achieve certain goals. This way you can see how many sessions, total duration, and total calories burned to achieve your goal. Then you can reset for you next goal.

Recommendations for Initial Use

After you have setup your watch, signed up on Polar Fitness website and are ready for a workout, I recommend doing 2 things. It's important to know 2 things; what is your resting heart rate and what heart rate range should you be working out in. Heart rate ranges for age and gender are good guides, but people who fall on either extreme end of the spectrum may either hurt themselves or not get enough out of a workout. For example, someone who is extremely out of shape, overweight, and has no real fitness stamina, then their heart rate range is going to be significantly less than another person who is in the middle of the spectrum in the same age group and gender. So, make sure to do the fitness test.

To do the fitness test, press the bottom right button 2 times, then press the right middle button. Make sure you heart rate monitor is on. You also want to do the following:

• Find a relaxed environment to do the test
• Avoid any physical activity prior to test, or any food, drink, or medicine that could alter your heart rate...do this for up to 1 day before test
• Avoid any large meals at least 2 hours before test (I tried test this way and right after a large meal and got the same results)
• Make sure if you are doing the test multiple times over time, always do it in the same conditions

Then, you can start the test, wait 5 minutes for it to finish, and see your results. You will then be asked to update your VO2Max, at which point you should, since it will make calorie burn more accurate.

My result for example, the first time I took the test mine was 42. Per the chart in the manual, that means my VO2Max was on the low end of being moderately good. The last time I took it I was at 53, which is very good. So, you can see I have improved. In essence, the fitness test is Polar's version of trying to determine your VO2Max. Compared to getting your actual VO2Max tested, it's not the greatest, but compared to most other calculators and competitor watches, it's one of the most accurate.

Training

When you want to start your workout, press the middle right button and wait for the watch to pickup the heart rate monitor signal. If you want to start, just press the middle right button again and go! If you need to pause, press the bottom left button, and the press the middle right button to resume. if you are done, press the bottom left button twice.

If you want to customize your workout, before pressing the middle right button a second time, press the bottom right button to see Training Settings, and then press the middle right button to see options.

• Training Sounds
• If you want beeps or not, and how loud
• Heart Rate View
• BPM or % of Max...whatever you want to display based on your training session
• Heart Touch
• I usually keep it on all of the time so I can see the current time if I need to
• Heart Rate Upper Limit
• If you are trying to keep from going above a certain heart rate, set the upper limit and make sure you have Training Sounds enabled so you know if you go over

Sadly, there are no other special training settings. However, there are plenty of other models you can get for this. But for a watch to get you accurate calorie burn from workouts, this is definitely the watch for you.