ZappoMan.com - Fitness Blog

Week 13 Report

April 1st, 2007

I’m back! After a good week of rest and recovery (which still meant 9 hours of exercise), I am feeling rested and eager to get out and train and blog about training again. I didn’t necessarily intend to take a rest week from blogging, but it just worked out that way. Of course, I kept thinking about things to blog about, and in fact, today I even did some “filming” of my long run, I am going to attempt to put together a little video blog entry for later this week. In the mean time here is my Week 13 training report.

I decided to just let my exercise happen this week. I didn’t plan anything, except my long run today, and the 8.5 hour goal from the annual plan. I figured that if I had a go with the flow attitude about what, when, and how to exercise, that I’d get more of a mental rest and recovery and that would be just as good for me as a physical recovery. I thought I might try out a couple of new experiments (like running at a new track near my house) and possibly working on some fitness tests ideas and also paying closer attention to what I was eating. In the end, none of these “projects” worked out, and they will be good fodder for blog posts later this week. But I did succeed in getting a good recovery week in before the final 3 big weeks of “Base” (13.8, 16, and 18 hours).

More details below…

Strength Training - 1 hour (1 session) - Tyler was back this week and we finally got back into our rhythm or regular workouts… that is if you can call one time in a row a rythm. We just got done with about an hour of stength training. I guess you could call it an upper body workout. I did a bunch of “chin ups” before Tyler got there, and after he got there I worked on chest, then biceps and triceps. I kinda mixed in a bunch of stuff, not real organized… but I feel good.

Swimming - 40 minutes (1 session) - Ok, if last week was bad, then this week was worse… or since I was supposed to just go with the flow, I’ll say, I went with the flow, and it only worked out that I got to swim once this week. At least I swam a full mile. I got some good encouragement from readers this past week encouraging me to find a better pool. And although that’s on my list of things to do, I’m mostly letting my wife handle the search. She visited the downtown YMCA this week with one of her friends and reported that it was really nice. It looks like they have 2 pools a dedicated lap pool and a seperate recreational pool. So this sounds like a much better setup. Maybe this week I’ll head down there and try it out as a guest.

Flexibility - 15 minutes (1 session) - Uh, What? Yeah… pretty bad. Basically I didn’t stretch at all this week… except today after my long run. So I’d say this was a pretty bad week with respect to my original annual process goal. I started the year strong with doing a nice little stretching routine each night before going to sleep. But I realize that lately I’ve been staying up late working, and it’s a little hard to stretch when you’re dragging yourself to bed. Of course, I should really just stretch after each workout (at least every bike or run) I pretty much do one of those activities each day, so this would still give me my daily goal. But I always seem to have an excuse for why I gotta do something else right away. Ok, this week… no more messing around! Stretch!

Running - 3 hours (21.3 miles - 3 sessions) - Strange week of running actually. I tried to squeeze in a speed session on Wednesday, but that didn’t work out because the track is a school track, and the track team came out while I was running so I had to clear out. I only got 2.5 miles in. The next day I dared to do back to back running days, but I figured that I barely got started the day before, so I didn’t need to worry. I ran 5 miles as a sort of fitness test. This is a little 5 mile loop I’ve been experimenting with running while my daughter is in music class. Basically I run around the neighborhood where her class is. The first mile of the course is all up hill, and then you run downhill, then flat, then downhill again, then uphill. I am not sure of the total elevation gain (I should check my Garmin) but it’s not really hard… and not really easy. Anyway, I ran it in 35:50. Not a PR for a 5mile course, but not a bad pace (7:10) considering the hills, and the fact that my IM race pace goal is 8:00/miles. Today I did a long run 13.8 miles. I was trying to run slow. I busted out of the gates way too fast 7:30/mile… and eventually slowed to finish with an average 8:45/mile pace. Felt really good and really strong… I suspect this was due to the really light week. Next week’s long run will probably be a little more challenging.

Cycling - 4.75 hours (80 miles - 3 sessions) - Easy week of riding, all of it on my Redline 925. I have switch to freewheel to give my knee a little break, but with the bigger 48 front crank, I’m stepping up the power output. Yesterday I did a nice 52 miles riding the Lake Washington Loop. I enjoyed being able to descend the hills without pedaling my brains out. Friday I had done a quick 20miles, and on wednesday I did about 8 miles of commuting to and from the track. At 1,256 road miles, I’m well on pace to achieve my 5,000 mile goal this year. I’m also ahead of last years pace with by this time of year still included mostly spin class miles.

Weight (140lbs) and Body Image (good) - This week I started the week very gung-ho about trying to count calories. I got through Wednesday and then things got harder because I ate out of the house for breakfast, then thursday for dinner, then friday for dinner, then this morning for breakfast. Normally we don’t eat out this much… and counting calories at a resteraunt is almost impossible. But the first coulple days where I know exactly how many calories of what macronutrients I was eating helped me recalobrate. I definitley was eating more calories than I should over the last couple months… and so with my renewed “food goggles” I will do a better job of eating healthier… so long as I can stay away from eating out.

Total Hours Exercised: 9.67
Swim, Bike, Run Hours: 8.42

Charts? Here you go….

Entry Filed under: Blogroll, Fitness, Triathlon, Diet, Weightloss, Swimming, Ironman, Running, Cycling, Marathons, Strength Training, Flexibility, Stretching, fixie, single-speed, fixed-gear, food, exercise, gyms