Atrophy fading

I have pushed myself off of the couch and started crawling around the world of exercise again.

My weekly routine includes Kung Fu on Mondays and Thursdays and a run on Tuesday.

Today's run (yeah it's Tuesday here) was about 8km. The weather is starting to warm up and the days are getting longer, so hopefully that provides greater opportunity to get out.

Also, I have procured a new road bike, so look for a couple of rides to work themselves into the weekly routine.

Once I get to the point of being able to run and bike consistently without putting my body into complete shock I'll try to get a program together and track progress with the GPS gizmo thingy. Hopefully that will happen in the next week or so.

Update

I am now an atrophied couch potato living in New Zealand.

Though the desire to run a marathon has largely disintegrated, I feel like it's time to get back in shape before I succumb to heart failure. As chance would have it I brought my sweet GPS watch with me, so there may be some charts popping up in the near future.

The barnacle lives.

Results - Week 3 and Week 4

Two updates for the price of one! Things have been going quite well an I'm feeling very comfortable with most of my runs as far as enrgy levels are concerned. The lack of base training is noticeable however, as the stress on tendons, ligiments and muscles is bringing some minor aches. Nothing a bit of stretching can't get rid of but I'm still paying close attention due to the fact that I can't afford to loose time to a serious injury.

Anyways, here are week 3 results...

Day    Distance   Description   Time     Pace
----------------------------------------------
Mon    8.1        hills         1:12:21  8:56
Tue    4.7        flat          37:32    8:04
Wed    6.0        hills         not      timed
Thu    7.0        hills         not      timed
Fri    --         --            --       --
Sat    11.0       flat          1:26:05  7:49
----------------------------------------------
Tot    36.8

And for week 4...

Day    Distance   Description   Time     Pace
----------------------------------------------
Mon    6.05       tempo(2x10)   43:20    7:09
Tue    73         biked         Lake     Tahoe
Wed    2.34       flat          15:44    6:43
Thu    7.0        int(5x800)    --       2:50.5
Fri    6.64       flat          48:20    7:19
Sat    12.1       hills         1:35:51  7:55
----------------------------------------------
Tot    34.13      running
Tot    73.0       biking

If we use the 4:1 biking to running ratio the ride around Lake Tahoe would be equivelant to 18 miles of running, bringing the total for week 4 up to about 52. That ride was awesome but unfortunately we didn't take that many pictures, but I did get an elevation profile from the GPS...

What a Difference 2 Weeks Makes

I haven't been wearing my GPS much this week in order to concentrate on just getting the miles in without worrying about pace. However I did wear it on my long run this morning and I though it was pretty interesting how different the graph looked today compared to the graph of my first long run I posted 2 weeks ago. This mornings run, though longer, was along the same route as the previous one so they're very comparable. I modified the heart rate zones a little bit from their default values and replotted the first run, so it doesn't look exactly he same as the graph posted earlier.



Distance: 6.6 miles
Average Pace: 8:07
Average Heart Rate: 160

Now here are the results from this mornings run...



Distance: 11.0 miles
Average Pace: 7:49
Average Heart Rate: 153

It's hard to be disappointed about the progress made so far. Where as I felt totally gassed at the end of the first long run, this morning I actually felt pretty good, like I could have gone a bit longer if needed.

Looking Forward

Now that the first 3 weeks are almost out of the way it's time to start planning how the real training should go. As mentioned earlier, each week will have 3 focus workouts and 3 recovery days. So let's look at how I'm hoping they will progress over the coming weeks.

Week    Tempo        Intervals    Long    Tot
---------------------------------------------
4       2 x 10min    5 x 800m     12      45
5       2 x 15min    4 x 1200m    14      50
6       2 x 20min    4 x 1600m    16      55
7       1 x 30min    8 x 800m     18      60
8       1 x 35min    6 x 1200m    20      60
9       1 x 40min    5 x 1600m    18      60
10      1 x 40min    10 x 800m    20      60
11      1 x 40min    6 x 1200m    18      65
12      1 x 40min    10 x 800m    20      65

Supposedly that last interval workout should be a pretty good indicator for a marathon time. One should be able to run each 800m in their target time in hr:min converted to min:sec. For example, if I want to run a 3 hour marathon I should be able to run each 800m in 3 minutes.

Preview - Week 3

The target for this week was for about 35 miles. However, with the week half over I've already put in 19 and have yet to do the Saturday long run. I'm feeling significantly better than last week so I might get in closer to 40 miles. That's on the edge of my comfort zone as I don't want to increase too quickly and risk injury. After this week I will have to limit myself to upping the load by no more than 5 miles per week.

Mon - 8
Tue - 5
Wed - 6
Thu - 5
Fri - 5
Sat - 10

This is the last week of my short "base" training segment and next week I'll start throwing in some light intervals and a short tempo run. Those workouts will stay mild for a couple of weeks as mileage is still increasing, but they will soon become major focus points along with the long run.

Results - Week 2

Oops, a little late with the update :D

Last week wasn't too bad, threw in about 40 miles of bike riding which is equivalent to about 10 miles of running. That was probably a good thing because my legs were feeling a little sluggish.

Day    Distance   Description   Time    Pace
--------------------------------------------
Mon    22         biking
Tue    7.1        hills       1:01:25   8:42
Tue    17         biking
Wed    --         --            --      --
Thu    5.1        flat          35:38   7:00
Fri    --         --            --      --
Sat    7.54       hills       1:11:16   9:26
--------------------------------------------
Tot    19.74      running
Tot    39.00      biking

So adding everything up it's about what I was shooting for. Saturday's run was really slow, but at this stage I'm not too concerned with that. It was very hilly and my heart rate was at 80-90 percent for over 50 minutes of the run, so it had to be doing some good.