Week 10 - Tool 1 and Tool 2
Well, since this is supposed to be a blog about getting ready for a 444 mile bike race, I guess it is about time that I start a weekly progress post talking about something that is more directly related to the 2020 goal race. Training volume was significant this week at more than 18 hours and while it was really hard to find the time I think I stumbled onto a training methodology that is going to help get me ready for a race that takes 24+ hours.
I went into this week shooting for 18+ hours and there were plenty of reasons not to get there. Work was busy. I actually went back into the office on Tuesday at 7pm expecting to pull an all nighter. A friend was moving on Saturday which was going to interfere with the normal 3 1/2 hour session at the Y. I've been having some stiffness in my right knee that caused me to bail out halfway through the Wednesday night Body Pump class for fear that I was going to take a warning sign past the point of no return.
Out of a mix of stubborn and stupid I reworked the plan so that Thursday was 4 1/2 hours of training with ~1 hour of hard running in the morning followed by ~1 hour of heavy lifting and 2 1/2 hours on the spin bike in the evening. I was still going to be behind on hours. I didn't yet have enough hours "in the bank" to be able to clear Saturday of everything except Body Pump. I do my best to protect Body Pump classes because they also double as an opportunity to spend more time with my wife. The result? Friday became my first 3-a-day. Friday AM was 5,000 yards in the pool before work. Friday's lunch was 1 hour on a spin bike. Friday evening on the way home became an easy ~1 hour treadmill run. The total was 5 workouts and ~8 hours of swim/bike/run/lift in 2 days. Mixed between all of these workouts was actual work and while I may sit at a desk for a living I do still have to be alert and engaged to do my day job. It was all a challenge, but a really good challenge. Having so many sessions and hours of training in 2 days did leave me really having to work the grind in a way that might come back to help when I'm in the second half of the 444 miles of the Natchez Trace Parkway. Oh, and when that 2 days of grinding was done? The reward was to follow Body Pump with 8 hours of lifting, walking and climbing stairs. I guess it is a good thing that Sunday was just a nice, easy 23 mile run 😁 The planned 3 hour run had to be extended or I was going to come up 16 minutes short of the 18 hour goal. Of course, once I added the 16 minutes I couldn't stop because running 22.38 miles would just be weird. I think I may have a problem.
So, what about Tool 1 and Tool 2? Tool 1 is Mr. Fitness Advisor. Tool 2 is Mr. Fancy Scale.
Enter Mr. Fitness Advisor, a.k.a Tool 1. He started about a year ago and over the months he has made dozens of little snide comments. I don't need the drama, so I've always been nice in return and often turned mildly inappropriate comments from him into a joke. He has literally told me that I "sweat too much" and that I need to "do something about that." Really. That's the kind of B.S. that I've blown off and continued to smile and be polite.
This Thursday I ran hard/fast for 7 miles. It was harder than I expected even though I dialed back the speed a little bit. I leaked more than usual. The treadmill picture is from Thursday. I took the picture to complain on Strava that it is hard finishing a run well when for the last 3/8ths of a mile every foot push off is accompanied by a slip. I got a cloth towel and cleaned the treadmill until it was spotless. I cleaned the floor behind the treadmill and the floor next to the treadmill. Mr. Fitness Advisor then followed me over to the stretching area to complain that I was leaving behind footprints. I tried to diffuse the comments with an apology and a joke that I had "leaked more than normal today." I stretched and cleaned the stretching mat until there was no drop left behind. On the way out of the cardio room, Mr. Fitness Advisor then had to confront me a second time. I'd had enough. My patience was lost. It is a gym. He started to lecture me and I tried to respond. He wouldn't stop talking to let me speak. I spoke louder. He refused to yield. All I wanted to say (sarcastically) was that I would be happy to change my shoes post workout as soon as people walking in from the snow filled parking lot left their shoes at the door. I never got to the punch line. He told me to stop yelling at him. I don't *think* I was yelling, but my voice was definitely raised. He wouldn't stop and let me speak. Then he dropped the line. He told me, "you really have a sense of entitlement that you should be allowed to do whatever you want in here." Really? I walked away stunned and pissed. I'd already posted on Strava about the first encounter and now I updated it with part 2. SMH. His comment really stuck with me. I vented to several people at work. On the one hand, I understand and agree that members should clean up after themselves. However, am I really supposed to do bring a mop to save him the inconvenience of a 15 second walk across the fitness floor? Is his time standing behind the desk doing nothing so precious? Am I really supposed to bring a change of shoes for the post workout walk to the stretching area and then the locker room?
After the fourth or fifth time I told an abbreviated version of this story to a coworker I decided that I do feel entitled. Maybe it makes me Tool #3 in this story but I do feel like I deserve the luxury of walking to the locker room in sweaty clothes post workout at a gym. I do feel like I deserve the luxury of being able to do a workout without snide comments about how my body works. For anyone that made it this far, this was the same Thursday described at the beginning where I went back for 3 1/2 more hours after work. That second visit started with a walk into the Executive Director's office for my local Y branch. He was a very nice fellow. I gave him a more calm version of this story that also include other prior encounters that I felt were inappropriate. He was listening very intently and seem genuinely bothered by the entire story but when I got to the part where I was accused of being "entitled" his mouth literally dropped open. I think he expected me to ask for specific action to be taken, but I didn't. I simply wanted to give him the facts as best I could and trusted that he would decide the best way to handle the situation. He agreed that it is OK to walk through the gym after a workout with sweaty sneakers.
The story about Mr. Fitness Advisor could have ended there but it didn't. I went upstairs to get a 10 minute warm up on a bike before weight lifting. When I was done and walking from the cardio side to the weights side of the facility I saw the Executive Director straightening chairs and just generally checking on things. As I got close I started to thank him for listening to my concerns at the exact same instant Mr. Fitness Advisor emerged from the weight room and we all converged into a very small area at the same time. I don't know what followed, but I suspect I know when the conversation happened. The next day when I went back for workout #3 on Friday, Mr. Fitness Advisor was working. I declined to say hello and be friendly. He said nothing to me. It sucks to have a weird tension in the air but I suspect at this point that we are no longer on speaking terms. It is unfortunate, but it is what it is.
Whew, this week is turning into a marathon of a post. I hope I haven't bored you all to death yet. Now onto Tool 2, Mr. Fancy Scale.
All 3, or maybe 4 people that read this thing would be excused for not noticing last week did not include any Body Composition data and that my weight jumped up a lot. The batteries in Mr. Fancy Scale died. I replaced the batteries and now the scale no longer lets me play games to get my weight lower. Bad scale. Baaaaadddd scale. For years now, I've known that if I shift my weight towards the top of the scale I can get the scale to read about 6 pounds lighter. I certainly wasn't going to let it lie to me on the heavy side of things! Please Mr. Fancy Scale just tell me that I'm awesome. Pretty please?
However, when we bought a new scale at Christmas time it showed me 7 pounds heavier. When I got the VO2Max test their scale had me at 6 pounds heavier. Now that I've replaced the batteries and removed the dust bunnies from some of the feet on Mr. Fancy Scale I can't play games anymore. Mr. Fancy Scale now only knows how to tell the truth. I'm heavier and now Mr. Fancy Scale reads the same as the others. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.
While I'm still deciding what to do, there are two things that I've learned from this. One thing is that I probably need to finish coming to terms with the idea that these numbers are probably not the best measure of how my body has changed anyway. I'm probably best off looking at how much weight I can lift, how fast I can run and how far I can bike to validate that my body is changing for the better. The other thing is that I'm going to follow through and pay a trainer at the Y to get the skin calipers out and measure my body fat the old school way. I don't know what I'll do with that information, but it will be interesting to compare that result with the chart above. It will also be interesting to repeat the skin caliper test in another 6 months to see if there are any measurable changes that show up from so much high volume training.
Weekly Stats
Swim - 9000 yards
Bike - 117 miles
Run - 47 miles
Body Pump - 2 times
Heavy Lifting - 2 times
Duration - 18:08 hours
Physical Therapy - 0 times (life got in the way, I'll do better next week)
Body Composition
Weight - 206.6 pounds%Fat - 16.4
%Water - 55
%Muscle - 38.9
Overall Plan and Progress
