Half Marathon Training - Week 8

Another rough week, but I was still able to get in three runs and a long ride. So, I was pleased with my progression. I still am lacking consistency with getting everything done, but things are too hectic again for me to have the time.

Swimming
No time for swimming sessions.

Cycling
My goal had been to attempt to ride for 4 hours. My legs were extremely tired from the 10 miler the prior day. I still rallied up any energy I had to get in about a 2.5 hour ride. Overall I felt fine during the ride, but my body was so exhausted from lack of sleep and the run that I just could not seem to push myself any harder. I finally got to a point where I was so exhausted I could feel my muscles starting to actually hurt, so I called my ride.

The reason for this ride was to test my current cardiovascular endurance. I have a lot more training to go, but it was a great benchmark.

Running
I got in three of my five runs. For my weekend tempo run, I swapped it with my long run since I had to do a long bike ride on Sunday. My form is definitely holding steady and I am starting to be winded later in my run now. Very excited about my progress and hope to keep it up!

Strength
I didn't do any formal lifting sessions, but I did about 4 hours of super heavy box and furniture lifting. I also was able to get in a couple stretch sessions, which helped immensely.

Nutrition
I decided to quit chips and crackers cold turkey. This has proved to be amazingly difficult, because I guess I truly had an addiction to them. However, just cutting that out helped me lose a couple pounds in less than a week and overall, I felt a lot better throughout my day.

Final Thoughts
I have been struggling in dealing with my stress because I would usually binge eat chips or crackers. However, it feels awesome to have already lost a couple pounds just by cutting that out of my daily eating. I also find myself cooking more, which in turns has me more motivated to go workout. Sadly, life is majorly getting in the way and I am not able to get all of my workouts in that I want. However, as long as I can keep progressing, injury free, I'll take whatever time I can get. Have a good week!

Building Plan: Week 7 Complete

What a week! Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, are enjoying Hanukkah, or just enjoying some time off from work. I had one of my most successful workout weeks in a while, and I am hoping to keep this momentum. I had great running sessions, although my strength sessions were lacking again. I also did much better with cross training.

Strength Training

I only got in 1 of 3 full sessions. I did my usual daily stretches, but that doesn't make up for the 2 days missed. I will be making a bigger effort to make sure I am getting these strength days, as I feel this week was successful because of strength from last week.

Running

I hit all 3 runs this week! I continued my cadence week 5/6 plan. I'll make a post later showing the training progression plan. However, I will note now, and when I post, that this plan was specifically to help correct a running form issue I developed over the last few years due to my injuries and is not a plan I'll be building on. I will be building on my mileage, but this program was focused on my stride and foot strike.

Sunday I was able to get outside and run at a local track. It was an extremely tough run though because I have not run outside in a long time, so my SPM was much lower than I wanted. I was excited to learn the only open-to-public track in my county is the one somewhat near me. I'll be going here a lot more, as there is no substitute for outside running. Don't get me wrong, I have been making incredible strides with the treadmill, and it has been really good to get me going, but I need to wind, extreme temperature changes, and soon, hills.

Cycling

I was got in a cadence ride on my trainer. These rides are still destroying me. I am not too concerned though, as I have no been focusing on cycling or my cycling cadence much. However, I am not going to just hop on the bike to ride and burn calories, so I chose cadence. I am still hoping that once I get my running and strength consistent, I'll be able to bump up to at least 2 cadence sessions a week.

Swimming

I only did a short swim after one of my runs. It was 10 minutes and I was focused on form, especially arm rotation. I did this for two reasons. The first is that I usually recover exponentially quicker when i swim after my runs. Secondly, I wanted to push my shoulders, as they were already tired from my run. I think I did pretty well, and my goal is to always get in a swim after at least one of my runs, if not more.

Final Thoughts

Overall this is one of the best weeks I have had in a while. I plan on continuing this momentum. I'll definitely be adding another week of my Cadence Week 5/6 to my schedule. Although I don't have any running races or triathlons planned for 2017 yet, my dad wants to do the City to Shore ride again, but with the Century distance (100 miles or 160 km). So I'll be training for that.

Building Plan: Week 5 Complete

What a week. I was at the vet hospital a ton, I got sick, and I aggravated my knees and right foot. I still pushed through and got workouts in, but I was overly cautious and conservative. I'll go into detail, but I am pretty happy with my decisions. To make thing frustrating though, I have been dealing with some sort of joint or some other issue in my left thumb for months, and it's getting worse. Probably will have to head to get x-rays on it.

Running

I only got my first run in for the week. The following day both knees and my foot were so bad I was limping. I thought maybe I went too hard on the treadmill. However, it's a lot simpler than that. The past couple weeks I have been slacking on my strength training, core strength, and stretching. As I have noted before, these things are imperative to long term injury prevention for myself and keeping my knee and foot issues at bay. I had a nice reminder last Tuesday of this fact. Fortunately, I didn't try and doing any running until my knees and foot were feeling good again.

Cycling

I got in some spin sessions, as well as a trainer session. I am just going to emphasize how ridiculously useless spin bikes are in regards to real bike training. I am going to write a blog article on this later in the week, so you can read more about that then. Anyway, I had, what I thought, were two amazing spin sessions where I was easily hitting 90 rpm at a very decent resistance. But my trainer ride showed me how inaccurate those sessions were. To achieve only 85 rpm average, I was going at a fraction of the resistance and worked at least twice as hard. That is fine though, I will continue to use the spin bike for warm-ups when I need breaks from my running warm-ups. Also, when I don't have time to get trainer rides in I'll use spin bikes for 1-legged drills and sit-stand strength training.

Swimming

It didn't happen. I literally had no time to get over to LA Fitness to get into the pool. Until my cat's health issues are more under control and he has his surgery, I expect this to be an ongoing issue.

Strength Training

I am embarrassed to say I got in 1 strength session, which was just core strength. Not only that but I overdid the session and my left deltoid and trapezius muscles were completely messed up for 2 days afterwards, even with stretching and using a lacrosse ball. This will not be happening again, as I cannot afford to have knees, foot, and other injuries like I did this week.

Final Thoughts

I will be revamping my training schedule to be a lot more basic and not worry about doubles just to get all of my training in. My original intent was to build my strength, get a consistent stretching and core routine, and to build my running back up. I have strayed from this by trying to get cycling and swimming in, causing me to focus on cardio more, strength less, and ultimately scope creep from my plans. Week 6 will be much more structured, but simple. I will probably follow this until real life gets a little less crazy, then I'll start adding back my other cardio.

Progress

I weighed myself this morning, with my eating being completely out of whack lately. To my surprise, my scale said I was down 2.2 pounds. Even though the quality of food has been poor overall, the quantity has been down a lot. So, as usual, it always goes back to calories in versus calories out. 

However, as one would expect, I have been extra sluggish and despite my lack of sleep, I have been more tired during the day than I usually would with more nutritious foods.

Either way, I am trying to make sure I am logging my food. I need to go back and update some meals, as laziness and being tired from the day has caused me to have to alter some of my dinners that I had pre-entered.

I really want to get some sort of basic workout in tonight, even if it’s just some push-ups, pull-ups, wall sits, and lunges. To try and avoid my usual excuses of “lack of time”, “tired” and “busy”, I plan on doing some of the workout while the mushroom and goat cheese calzones cook. And once dinner is completed, I will finish up my workout and then eat dinner. I got this!

Focus, Discipline, Motivation

One of these things I cannot say I lack, because I truly just don't have it; discipline. But, I do all of these crazy races, and tons of them, and my times are not horrible. I appear to be training for my events. So how do I not have discipline? Well, let me explain.

I will start off with focus, since that is easiest. When I am working out or racing, I have complete focus on the task at hand. All of my worries and troubles and the rest of the world vanish. I have no problems here. Getting here is the tough part, since I lack the discipline to force myself here when I need to be.

Secondly, motivation. If you know me or you have read my blog or see the races I do, you will know I am not lacking in the motivation department. My motivation drives me enough to get just enough training in so I don't die at my races and can hopefully be alright enough to drive home or back to my hotel afterwards.

But discipline; this I have none of. I cannot force myself to stick to a schedule, I lack any consistency in my life, when times are tough I cave in from the pressure and skip workouts, eat poorly, slack off, or all of the above. When I look back at my life to this point, I realize that I have never had discipline; something I am always jealous of my younger brother, as he controls the very essence of discipline. 

This is not a sob story, just me getting out reality so that I can be held accountable by others and not just myself. It's also a reminder to myself that I have a lot of self-improvement to do.

Although I cannot magically get discipline over night, I will be working very hard towards this. You all know my goals; Boston and Kona. Without discipline, I will never get to either. Therefore, expect to see lots of blog posts, status updates, healthier lifestyle, more sleep, and a proper fitness plan that will help me achieve my goals.

To anyone out there struggling, the first step is to identify your flaws, be humble, and then make an effort to correct those flaws. It's a hard road, but if you make it to the end, you will be a changed and better person for it. Happy hunting!