Week 6 - Getting Stronger

All things considered, this week went pretty well.  I didn't fall and hurt myself, which is a nice bonus.  By Monday of this week my body finally felt normal again after trying to parachute from the truck without an actual parachute.  The strength training seems to be kicking in.  I've had a few runs in the last month where my legs just didn't seem to fatigue the same anymore.  The tempo workout was a barn burner with 5 miles on the treadmill @6:14 pace.  In the past this would have left me feeling a lot worse than it did.  It's actually the fastest I've ever done that particular run.  I was actually able to follow the schedule the way it was written this week, which is soooooo 2019.  Between the holidays and the fall last week there were 3 weeks in a row that stopped me from being able to execute the plan the way I wanted to.  As a result, my bike mileage is back up this week which is good since the long term goal here is to do an actual bike race in October.

And now that I executed the plan as written this week it seems like a great time to rewrite some of it.  The first phase of the 43 week plan was to pace a friend at a marathon on week 16 and then fun run Boston 3 weeks later.  It looks like my friend isn't going to do the marathon after all which changes the dynamic for me.  We might go run the half marathon, in which case I would be racing it.  It would be fun to collect a nice big 13.1 PR on a fast course when I'm in good condition.  The net result is that there are 3 more weeks that can be used towards the marathon build.  For me the button usually pops out (think turkey in the oven) right around week 15 or 16 of a marathon build.  I was ramping up mileage and intensity quickly when this was a 16 week plan so now I find myself not far away from peak mileage with 13 weeks to go.  The "extra" weeks are going to go towards a more significant run cutback every 3rd week.  Conveniently, one of these cutback weeks is the same weekend the Olympic Trials will be held in Atlanta for the marathon.  I'm currently registered as a volunteer for one of the water stops so if everything works out (fingers crossed!!!) I'll be able to watch some of the best runners in the world stream by on course in person.  I can't express how unbelievably lucky I feel to have a chance to be part of that event.

I've been nervous about my weight this week.  I've cleaned up my diet some the last few weeks and it has left me on a slow downward trend.  I want to be lighter when I race, but not yet.  My goal until the end of February is to work hard at building muscle while maintaining a significant swim/bike/run load.  This is probably an impossible task, but that won't stop me from trying.  It seems like losing weight while trying to build muscle is likely counter productive.  So, while I'm glad I gained a whopping 0.4 pounds this week, I'm still concerned about how this part of the experiment will go.

The real source of my concern?  After I finished 3 hours of Body Pump + cycling on Saturday I was ravenous.  I went home, immediately drank Muscle Milk and ate a big lunch.  Then for the next 5 hours I accomplished 2 things.  Eating everything in sight and sleeping.  I got 2 short cat naps and in between Z's managed to eat an entire box of Frosted Flakes cereal and 2/3rds of a block of cheese.  I'm not proud of it and this isn't what a "cleaned up" diet looks like but it is what happened.  The fact that I ate non stop on Saturday and then weighed in only 0.4 pounds heavier on Sunday might be a warning.


Finally, looking forward to next week, I've scheduled a VO2Max test at a local university.  I'll be interested to see how the numbers compare to previous years with more traditional training plans, but I'll be even more interested to chat with the person that administers the test to get his thoughts on my wacky and weird approach to training.


Weekly Stats

Swim - 8000 yards
Bike - 98 miles
Run - 27 miles
Body Pump - 2 times
Heavy Lifting - 2 times
Duration - 15:37 hours

Physical Therapy - 2 times

Body Composition
Weight - 200 pounds
%Fat - 15.3
%Water - 56.4
%Muscle - 38.8

Overall Plan and Progress

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