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Freff's 2012 Journal


Freff
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I've never had a public training journal, so this should be interesting! I've recently signed up for the UK Ironman in Bolton - a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile cycle followed by a 26.2 mile run. I've got ~7 months to train and I'm hoping to do it in sub 14. Training is a little all over the place at the moment, one of my main goals is to work out a proper schedule for it.

 

If all goes to plan, I'll be posting all my work out logs, and all of my nutrition. Nutrition logs will be a new one for me!

 

Goals:

 

UK Ironman ( 22 July )

Establish a firm training schedule

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It's 2am here and I thought I'd put a quick post in before hitting the pillow.

 

I just signed up for two more events - a half marathon and a 50k ultra, which puts my race schedule for 2012 looking like this:

 

March 25th - Half Marathon

July 22nd - Ironman

October 7th - 50k Ultra

 

Somewhat nervous, I'm slightly worried that I've piled on too much. But it's given me three goals which I've always wanted to hit - so I can't back out now!

 

Since signing up it's felt like a prolonged day 0, lots of research and learning for the long weeks ahead. Tomorrow morning I plan on putting up a day #0 picture and statistics, then head out for a run + do that whole diet and meal plan thing I've heard so much about. Looking forward to it!

 

- Chris

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Day #1

 

Exercise

 

AM - 28.4km cycle ~50 minutes. Forgot to stopclock it, a mistake which will be rectified.

 

PM - *Planned ab set*, will edit once completed.

 

Food

 

Breakfast ( before cycle ) - lentils + vegetables

 

After cycle - two bananas + lentils

 

Lunch - Pasta

 

Dinner - Brown rice + grilled mushroom, pepper and onion

 

Snacks - Celery sticks, peanuts

 

Comments

 

Had a headache most of the day after coming back from my cycle, not sure what went wrong - everything pre, during and post was as normal and it was a standard route. I think it might be that I haven't done much exercise over Christmas and was a shock to the system.

 

Breakfast was odd today - been away from home the last two weeks, so coming back to realise I had nothing breakfast capable in my cupboards meant I ate food from last night.

 

All in all, a good start. Tomorrow I plan an AM run, PM is currently undecided.

 

-Chris

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I missed blogging on Tuesday + Wednesday! I had a full day assessment centre / job interview Wednesday, so aside from a quick shoulder set on Tuesday morning I was too busy preparing for the interview to do anything. Nutrition slipped a little too.

 

Thankfully I don't have anything else like this planned, so I'll be piling the training back on now.

 

Tuesday

 

Shoulder set AM :

 

Wide grip pull ups - 5, 5, 5, 4

 

Chin ups - 7, 7, 4

 

Narrow grip pull ups - 2

 

Nutrition:

 

Breakfast - bran flakes.

 

Lunch - curried lentils + brown rice, two bananas, salted peanuts

 

Dinner - pasta

 

I had a pretty hefty cupcake as well, at the time I put it down to stressing over an interview the next day

 

Wednesday

 

No exercise today! Woke up at normal gym time and worked on interview technique instead, once I got home from my assessment I crashed out and woke up a few hours later.

 

Nutrition

 

Breakfast - bran flakes

 

Lunch - pitta breads, hummus + salsa

 

Dinner - Pasta

 

 

Dinner lately has always been plain pasta, I've been a little tired going from a lazy routine over Christmas to a proper routine again. So once I fall back into place I think it'll start getting a lot more interesting.

 

 

Right, time to hit the squat cage for Thursday's session!

 

- Chris.

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THURSDAY!

 

Back in the gym this morning, but the squat cage was taken - turned to the leg press machine instead.

 

39kg - 21 x2

59kg - 15 x2

79kg - 12 x2

59kg - 21

39kg - 21

39kg - 5 stretch set

 

Quick ab set after this

 

Sit ups - 12

Crunches - 21

Oblique sit ups - 12 each side

Rotation sit ups - 21 each side

 

Food has been odd today, massive lack of appetite across the entire day.

 

5am Breakfast pre-gym - bran flakes

7am post-gym - Lentils (massive craving)

 

2pm lunch - brown rice + curried lentils, banana

 

8pm - more lentils, spaghetti.

 

 

Usually I eat 5am, 7am, 10am, 2pm, then it varies across the evening. So something's definitely wrong! I was definitely hungry, just didn't want to eat anything.

 

Anyone have any ideas what's happening?

 

Tomorrow is shoulders in the gym, hopefully head for a run in the evening if I can stomach eating anything during the day.

 

- Chris

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Guess who forgot a Friday + Saturday post. That's right, THIS GUY.

 

Friday - Shoulders + unscheduled rest day.

 

Shoulders

 

Dumbell shoulder press (standing)

 

6kg - 21 x2

10kg - 15, 6

*at this point I switched to seated*

10kg - 15

12kg - 12, 8

10kg 15

6kg - 5 stretch

 

Pull ups

 

5, 3

 

Shrugs

 

40k - 21

60k, 15, 15, 15

40k - 5 stretch

*back was feeling a little awkward, so I kept the weight low and stopped a little earlier than usual*

 

lat raises

4kg - 21 front:21 side

6kg - 12 front:12 side, 8 front:8 side x2

4kg - 3 stretch front:3 stretch side.

 

Rest - Since getting back from the gym I'd felt absolutely wrecked, I think with the job interview during the week and not eating very well, everything had caught up with me. I went for a 30 minute nap at 2pm to wake up 6 hours later. I don't think I'd been listening to my body enough the last week.

 

Saturday

 

Scheduled rest day, aside from a couple of pull up sets here and there ( bar is always on door, so whenever I walk past I'll do a couple ) I relaxed.

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SUNDAYYY! End of week #1.

 

Today was a bike day, I did 17 miles on a undulating/moderately hilly route. Again, forgot to stopwatch. It was roughly 50/60m.

 

Edibles

 

Breakfast - Porridge - oats, wheat bran, nuts+raisins

Lunch - potato, mushroom+onion niceties, sweetcorn

Pre dinner snack - 6 bread rolls

Dinner - brown rice, black bean stir fry

 

snacks - bananas, apples, oranges, salted peanuts

 

Not too happy about eating all of those bread rolls, but they may have been good to get CaloriesIn up.

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Looks like I'm pretty bad at daily updates. This will have to change me thinks! Getting in from work + training and crashing out, but once I get into the mindset of updates not being too difficult, I'll update on the regular.

 

Monday - Chest

 

AM

 

Dumbbell bench press

 

6kg - 21 x2

10kg - 15

14kg - 12 x4

10kg - 15

6kg - 21

 

Tri pull downs ( using some matrix machine cordy thing )

 

17.5lb - 21

Dips

Headcrushers

27.5 - 12

17.5 - 21

 

Dips

 

-32kg - 5, 3

 

Headcrushers

 

10kg - 12

20kg - 12, 12, 5

10kg - 21

 

PM

 

4.2 mile run - 38 minutes

 

It was my first time doing bench press with dumbbells and headcrushers, so I didn't try to push the weight too much - kept it low and tried to get the technique right. Next Monday I'll start pushing it.

 

Tuesday - Back

 

Deadlifts

 

10kg - 21 x2

15kg - 12 x2

25kg - 8 x2

15kg - 12

10kg - 21, 5 stretch

 

ABBBBDOMINALS

 

sit ups - 12

crunches - 12

obliques - 12, 12

rotation sit ups - 12, 12

 

PM

 

7.5 mile run - 1.16.35

 

First time I've ever done deadlifts, so I kept the weight low and I'll be building up slowly.

 

Wednesday - Arms

 

Curls (reps per arm)

 

6kg - 21 x2

10kg - 12 x2

12kg - 8 x2

8kg - 12

6kg - 21

 

Chin ups - 5, 3

 

Hammers (reps per arm)

 

8kg - 21

12kg - 12

16kg - 8

12kg - 12

8kg - 21 x2

6kg - 21

 

Barbell wrist curls (behind back)

 

15kg - 21 x3

5 stretch set

 

Ordered some soy protein isolate today! Before now all my protein has come from food, so I'm hoping to start improving a little more with the increased intake.

 

New Goal

 

Update every day - do not allow cascade posts. Doing this will also allow me to put in my nutrition - I forget what I've eaten after a couple of hours, let alone a few days! Maybe I should start writing that down too?

 

So if all goes to plan, I'll be seeing you lovely people again tomorrow

-Chris

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I just decided to use 'the cloud' to log my nutrition. Kind of. I've tried various solutions in the past from using mpamyrun.com and nutrition.self.me, but they were never versatile enough and I hated the set up involved in order to write in recipes.

 

To combat this, I'm now using google dox to write each food I intake. It's not as good as self.me because I don't get any nutrition data unless I calculate it.

 

I do however own a website on the tinterwebs, and being a software engineer I don't see why I couldn't design and build my own platform for this sort of stuff, as buggy as it might be in the beginning.

 

So that's my current plan for nutrition, thought you would all like to know!

 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Aul6WJg-VShONS-RiFKBhkwxgQegUWaWAEsWaPbkbAQ/edit

 

And you may access it there, isn't that wonderful?

 

I did squats in the gym this morning, will post up a full routine + comments on it later after I've gone swimming!

 

- Chris.

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Cool, please keep us all updated on how this current form of logging your nutrition is working for you. I have also used nutrition.self.me and others and I always give it because I eat so many things that aren't in the system that it takes forever to go through and list all of the nutritional info for everything I ate.

 

-Dylan

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Sure! I'll be starting slow - just going to start logging which foods I'm eating, then after a week or two begin noting down weights, once that becomes comfortable start doing some real number works on them, but I'll keep progress noted as I update the journal.

 

Today was squats in the gym - I messed up swim timetable for the local pool and missed the lane hours, but I now know for tomorrow, so it shouldn't happen again.

 

Squatz

 

Front squatz

 

20kg - 21 x2

40k - 12 x2

 

*put the weight back on my back after this point*

 

Back squatz

40kg - 12

60kg - 8, 12, 12, 12, 5 stretch.

 

Comments

 

Front squats are...weird. I won't be keeping them up during Thursday sessions, but I might condition for them outside of that in case I decide I want to do them in future - does anyone have any tips for them? Whenever I had the weight firmly on my shoulders it pressed against my throat and that was a little uncomfortable, is this something I'll just have to get used to?

 

Tomorrow is shoulders, interval running and swimming in the evening.

 

- Chris.

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Friday! ...Friday, gotta get down on Friday?

 

Today was shoulders in the gym and a run at lunchtime. Still getting in and feeling absolutely wrecked, so I passed on swimming again.

 

shoulders

 

24's - 10kg x2 ( description can be found here -

)

 

Standing dumbbell shoulder press

 

6kg - 21

8kg - 15 x2

10kg - 12, 8

8kg - 12

6kg - 15

 

Pull ups (on rockclimbing rocks) - 3, 2

 

Dumbbell shrugs

 

20kg - 21

28kg - 15

30kg - 12, 12

20kg - 21

 

Lat raises (per arm)

 

6kg - 15

8kg - 6

6kg 8 x2

stretch x3

run

 

4.2miles, ~38 minutes.

 

Comments

 

This week I've had to pass on a lot of evening sessions, but I know this week I'm going to have to start going to them or I'll fall behind on my schedule.

 

24's was pretty fun, we used it as a warm up - next week we'll be doing it on sqaut, deads and shoulder days. Probably going to up the weight a little - I felt like I was throwing 10kg around a little bit too much.

 

Saturday is rest, 's going to be good.

 

- Chris

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Bit of a short entry today! Might not be finished till tomorrow either

 

Cycle - 17 miles, 58 minutes.

 

Going for my first swim of the year very soon, so I'll try edit this once I get back in, but if not it'll be an edit tomorrow job!

 

- Chris.

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Well, today was tough. Feeling toast right now - writing this then probably going to hit the pillow!

 

The swim yesterday didn't happen, mixed up my timetables and went when water polo had booked up the pool.

 

Chest - AM

 

Dumbell bench

 

6kg - 21

8kg - 21

14kg - 15

18kg - 8, 7, 7, 4

10kg - 15

6kg - 21

 

Tri pull downs

22.5lbs - 21

dips,

skullcrushers

22.5lbs - 21

12.5lbs - 21

 

Dips

36kg deducted - 3, 2

 

Skull Crushers

10kg - 12

15kg - 8

20kg - 5, 4

15kg - 12

10kg - 5 stretch

 

Run - Lunch

 

4.2 miles - 37.28. Put me at just under 9min/miles so I'm pretty happy with it.

 

Swim - PM

 

No set routine, just started working on front crawl technique and 'getting used to the water' making sure I have a better plan for the next time I go

 

Comments

 

Arms and chest have been feeling dead since this morning, walking is an interesting feeling. Squats tomorrow should be...fun?

 

 

I'm cycling a century at the weekend! Meeting up with some other local cyclists to do ~75 miles, and it's a 25 mile round trip for me to get to the meeting point. Hopefully my aerobic base is as strong as I'd like to hope it is, just nailing down the nutrition for it and I should be okay.

 

Tomorrow - squats, run, squash (if I haven't keeled over and died by then)

 

- Chris

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After today I feel absolutely ruined.

 

Box Squatz - AM

 

40kg - 21 x2

60kg - 12 x4

40kg - 21, 5 stretch

 

Box squats, they hurt. Probably doing them again next week and upping the weight a little in some of the later sets if all goes well.

 

ABBBBDOOMMINALLSS

 

Sit ups - 21

Crunches - 21

Obliques (each side) - 12

Roations (each side) - 12

 

Run - Lunch

 

4.2 miles - 38.42

 

Timing on the run definitely reflects how I'm feeling today, was hard pushing through it.

 

SQUSH

 

I go to a squash club Tuesday nights, unrelated to any of my Ironman/endurance goals but I enjoy playing and I'm kind of training to get better at it in its own right. Probably got 50 minutes in over the course of the evening.

 

 

Comments

 

First line says it all - feeling ruined today. Everything in me aches and it's become a serious effort to even get motivated to go out and train. I hope this is just a phase and I can power through it, but if I'm still feeling like this next week I'm going to re-assess how I'm doing things and switch things around.

 

-Chris

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Having to play a 2 1/2 day catch up, oh dear.

 

Wednesday - AM

 

Curls, seated

 

6kg - 21, 21

10kg - 12

14kg - 8, 8

10kg - 12

8kg - 12

6kg - 21

 

Chin ups

5, 3

 

Hammers

6kg - 21

10kg - 12, 12, 12

6kg - 21

 

Wrists

15kg - 21

20kg - 21, 21 5 Stretch

 

 

After the last few days of training I had felt tired almost non stop, and I know that when you're training endurance that's a sign of over training, so Wednesday night I reset (read: Went to bed at 7). Woke up at 5am next day for gym, so a good 10 hours of sleep. Felt good!

 

Thursday

24's - 20kg x2

 

Deadlifts

20kg - 21, 21

25kg - 15, 15

30kg - 12, 12

25k - 15

15kg - 21, 5 Stretch

 

 

Took the rest of the day off - still wasn't feeling 100%, early night and in for gym on Friday!

 

Friday

 

24's - 20kg

 

Standing military press, dumbbells

 

6kg - 21, 21

8kg - 15, 15

10kg - 12, 12

12kg - 2

8kg - 12

6kg - 21

 

Pull ups

 

4, 3

 

Shrugs

 

40kg - 21

70kg - 12, 15, 15, 21

40kg - 5 Stretch

 

Lat raises, side > front ( one motion )

 

6kg - 15

8kg - 8, 6

6kg - 12, 5 Stretch

 

 

I'm feeling good today, refreshed and all that. So I might head to the pool later and do some swim training, see if I can't nail down some more technique on my front crawl.

 

-Chris

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Today, as most my Saturdays are, was a rest day. For the most part at least - went into town and did some parkour trenin with some friends, couple of box jumps and some precision jumps so nothing too heavy!

 

Started prepping for a 100 mile ride on the bike tomorrow, I've (hopefully) got a good enough aerobic base for it, so it'll come down to nutrition and pushing through the last couple of miles. The speed will be slow, only a ~15mph average as it's mostly just something to get used to the distance.

 

Will update tomorrow with how it goes!

 

- Chris

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So the ride turned out to be a mere 30 miles today instead of the planned 100 - got a little lost finding the right place, and I think I went to the wrong meeting point anyway!

 

I was trying out some new nutrition today, TriCarb powder from MyProtein.com, and a couple of snack bars from ASDA, worked really well! Think I'll keep that sort of stuff for future runs, throwing in some gels for the heavier rides.

 

Tomorrow I'm starting a new program in the gym - getting rid of the 5 day split and going for a Strong Lifts 5x5 program for 12 weeks.

 

-Chris

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TriCarb was great, absolute rocket fuel. I bought the plain stuff which was a little sickly after a couple of hours, I think next time I'm going to take one bottle of water and one TriCarb, instead of two TriCarbs. ASDA is the UK Walmart, they were 'vitality bars' or something like that, 72 cals, 15g carbs per 22g bar, pretty cheap but I wanted some complex carbs as the TriCarb stuff is all sugar.

 

 

Might as well throw my Monday update in here too!

 

MONDAYYY, AM

 

Started StrongLifts 5x5 today (http://stronglifts.com/), mostly as an experiment for the next 12 weeks.

 

Warm up

 

24's - 15kg

 

Squtz

 

20kg - 5 x2

40kg - 3

50kg - 5x5

 

Bench

 

10kg - 5 x 2

20kg - 6 (should have been 3)

22.5kg - 5x5

 

Bent over rows

 

20kg - 5 x2

25kg - 3

30kg - 5x5

 

Abdominalals

 

Sit ups - 12

Crunches - 12

Obliques - 12 each side

Rotation sit ups - 12 each side

 

PM

 

run

 

5.2 miles - 45:54

 

 

 

Tomorrow is likely going to be a killer ab set in the gym, seeing as we now have nothing else to do on Tuedays

 

-Chris

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  • 2 years later...

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