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Jeff's training blog: 3 months, 30 pounds lost!


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Yesterday: 3.67 miles, 36:34, 9:58/mi pace. Splits were 10:37, 10:13, 9:03, and a 9:59 pace for the last .67. Avg HR 134, max 153.

 

Today: No exercise other than a little walking around. My feet have been bothering me a little more than usual lately, so I'm going to try to take a rest from running on pavement.

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Did 24 miles on the bike in about 1:43 (accidentally turned the monitor back on for a few seconds after the ride), avg speed 14.0, max 42, avg HR 114, max 154. Planning to do a lot of biking the next couple of weeks, to hopefully knock off a few more pounds and get in shape for an assault on my PR in the 5k some time this summer. Feet are feeling a little better since it's been several days since I went on a pavement-pounding run. Given past experience, I know resting from running on asphalt is no cure for my foot problems, but it does help some.

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Lifted for the first time in over a week. Surprisingly, I was still able to do 6 reps of 115 on the flat bench press. Did sets of 8 x 95 and 8 x 105 as well. Did a full-body workout except subbed something else for squats since the outside of my ankle was hurting for some reason.

 

Warmed up with 11 min. on the elliptical machine (avg HR 110), then moved outside and did 2 miles on a grass surface (outskirts of a golf course), mile splits were 8:29 and 8:34, avg HR 145 and max HR 159.

 

Afternoon run: 3.1 miles. Ran on the grass in the park. Thankfully, this does seem to make a significant difference compared to running on asphalt in how much my feet hurt later. Time: 29:53, avg HR 143, max 161, mile splits were 9:45, 9:43, 9:30, and a 9:18 pace for the last tenth. It was REALLY hot--96 and very humid. I was going to run 4 miles, but the heat was just too much.

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A little less hot today, so upped the tempo of the workout a bit. Did a mile of intervals and a 3-mile tempo run. Interval splits: 0.35 miles at 7:24 pace, .24 miles at 7:16 pace, and .22 miles at 6:32 pace. On the first one I hit a max HR of 175, and on the next two I supposedly had maxes of 190 and 189. Not sure if I buy those numbers or not. Took walk breaks in between.

 

Next 3 miles were 8:42, 8:35, and 8:10. Total time was 34:17, an 8:34 pace, with avg HR of 151 and max of 190.

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Wow, 190 and 189 are super high!

 

Not sure if I believe those figures or not. I'm pretty confident I've hit close to 180 before, but 190? We'll see if I can do it again. If the figures are accurate, that would mean my heart can beat significantly faster than is typical for my age, which is good. So the hitch is that no matter how much blood my heart can pump, my legs and lungs have to be able to keep up, and they're not there yet. The moment I stop an all-out effort, my heart rate drops like a rock, but I keep breathing hard and my legs stay tired for quite a bit longer.

 

Sunday's workout:

 

Bike ride of a bit over 30 miles. I accidentally stopped my monitor for a couple of tenths of a mile, so I rode until I hit exactly 30 on that. I accidentally set it to "run," but that actually turned out well because it was set up to record mile splits as well as give readouts in minutes per mile, whereas I haven't set the biking function up to do that yet. I'll skip listing 30 mile splits here, but on a bike it's a lot more variable than running--my slowest mile (the first, warmup mile) was in 6:47 and my fastest was in 2:24. I really pushed myself on the bike today other than on the first mile. Avg HR was 129, and max was 162. Avg speed was 14.7, max was 37.9, time was 2:02:23 for 30.01 miles.

 

A little later I went for a 3-mile run as well. Time 28:02, avg HR 141, max 176, pace 9:19/mi splits of 9:20, 10:02, and 8:34.

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Rode 31.65 miles, took it easy today. Time 2:29:36, avg speed 12.7, max 37.4, avg HR 109, max 155. Much of the route I took overlapped with a recent bike race and, as is typical in bike and running races, directions, encouragement, etc. were written on the road at various points. At one point just prior to a ridiculously steep and rather long hill, ARE YOU READY TO SUFFER? was written in large capital letters. I had to laugh at that one, even though I was indeed suffering going up the hill.

 

This evening I went to the gym. It was only an hour before they closed so it was a pretty short workout, a set of squats, two sets of flat bench presses, some rows, and 36 minutes on the elliptical machine. Set a PR of 120 (6 reps) on the bench press. Not sure how, because I've hardly been weightlifting at all the last couple of weeks. Average HR on the elliptical was 134 with a max of 148.

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Ran 6 miles, 1:00:05, avg HR 131, max 144. My left knee was hurting a little bit (vestige of too much biking, I guess), so I stopped at mile 3 and stretched a bit, and that helped significantly. Still didn't make it go away completely, though, so even though this was my long run day I took one more water/stretch break at mile 4 1/2 and quit at 6.

 

Took the dogs for a walk at Griffy Lake Park in the afternoon. It was ridiculously hot even in the shade, but hiked 2 1/2 miles over pretty rugged terrain and the knee didn't give me much trouble.

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Wednesday: Did deadlifts (just 180 pounds, 6 reps, don't have weightlifting gloves and didn't want to kill my hands!), bench press (only 115 today, 6 reps), dumbbell curls (27.5, 8 reps) and row machine (160? 8 reps?). I had planned on doing swimming for my aerobic workout today, but both indoor pools on campus were closed and I didn't feel like swimming out in the hot sun, especially not without sunscreen.

 

So, I did about 10 minutes on the rowing machine and 10 minutes on the elliptical, avg HR around 100. Later, I went ahead and ran 3.2 miles. Forgot to reset my watch and wound up with .8 miles from today added in, and I also got some false high HR readings the first mile, so I'm not sure of exact figures, but I think the pace was around 10:30 and avg HR was around 135.

 

Today: Around 4.92 miles, pace around 9:30. Had to break for water about halfway through. Splits were 9:14 pace for the first .92, 9:33, 10:10, 10:16, and 8:53. Did the last half mile or so at around 7:30 pace. Avg HR about 134, max HR 162.

 

Afternoon swim: 1100 meters. Of course I don't have time or heart rate data. I had to stop and rest pretty often; swimming is quite a workout! I took my pulse a few times, and after 50 meters of freestyle, my heart rate was consistently in the 130s to 140s, sometimes more. I think I'll probably go swimming tomorrow as well, so I'll have fresh legs for Saturday's 5k.

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Had planned on swimming this morning, but I forgot that the morning open laps hours only lasted until 8, so I missed it. Went for a very slow jog instead, 2.33 miles, 28:02, pace 12:00, avg HR 117 and max 130. Did a brief weight workout beforehand--crunches, lower back machine, 8 reps of 260 on squat machine, and 6 reps of 120 on flat bench press.

 

Afternoon: Swam 700 meters.

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5k race. Time was about 23:38, average HR was 155 with max of 167. Pretty flat course and not very hot weather, so I was hoping for slightly better, but it was close to the same as my fastest time this summer. Splits: 7:15, 7:53, 7:43, and I'm not sure what the last tenth was since I didn't stop my watch until about 10 seconds after the finish. Asthma acted up some at the end.

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nice 5K time!

 

All of this running and swimming, you need to get a tri in your racing schedule!

 

Well, I suppose I could probably handle a sprint tri, but I'm in no kind of shape for anything longer than that. I only just started swimming, and I have to stop and rest for a few seconds after every 50 meters or so.

 

Today I did my first long run in a while, 10 miles in 1:40:37, a 10:03 pace. Heart rate monitor was acting crazy the first mile or so despite my best efforts to make sure the sensors were wet, so I'm just guessing that my average HR was about 134 and max was about 166. Mile splits were 10:30, 10:29, 9:35, 9:38, 10:28, 10:16, 9:39, 9:58, 10:37, and 9:23.

 

I know it's not the same thing as running 13 miles all at once as far as conditioning is concerned, but I went ahead and ran another 3 miles in the afternoon (time 30:14, pace 10:05, splits 10:15, 10:00 and 9:59) since my legs felt up to it and I'm still trying to cut some weight. Needless to say, it was very hot. Garmin is still giving screwy heart rate data at first; the first mile was just worthless, so I'll average the other two and call 137 my average HR.

 

Went for a swim as well, but had to cut it short to run an errand after 500 meters. Felt good to get in the water.

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Monday: Rest--from exercise, anyway. I worked the entire day.

 

This morning's workout: 8 miles in 72:19, pace 9:02, avg HR 144 and max was probably 157 (once again, my monitor gave false high readings the first mile). First mile was a slow, easy warmup of 11:32, followed by a 7-mile tempo run, splits of 8:50, 8:42, 8:30, 8:31, 8:43, 9:00, and 8:27. That's the fastest 7 miles I've run this summer or maybe ever, hopefully a sign of continued improvement.

 

Legs felt pretty good today, no significant aches and pains, and feet really didn't bother me much at all. I'm definitely not cured, but running on the grass most of the time as well as having improved running form seems to have helped. Now I just need to figure out how to stop my cleats from killing the outsides of my feet when I bike! Anyone had foot pain issues when biking?

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Wednesday: 8 miles, 1:19:25, 9:55 pace, splits of 9:58, 10:16, 9:48, 9:59, 9:23, 9:03, 10:44, 10:08. Avg HR 130, max 152.

 

Afternoon: I was in a hurry, so I just did 1 set flat bench presses, 120, 7 reps, then did 20:40 on the elliptical machine, avg HR 121 max 134, and swam a whopping 300 meters.

 

Today: 8 mile run, 1:16:55, 9:36 pace, splits of 9:44, 9:50, 9:24, 9:52, 9:30, 9:58, 9:25, and 9:08. Avg HR 135, max 152.

 

Bike ride: 15.31 miles, 1:11:35, avg speed 12.8, avg HR 116, max 144.

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Interval workout today. Unfortunately, even though I thought I had followed the directions for programming my Garmin for an interval workout to the T, it didn't record the splits, so I'm going to have to guess at the times. Did a warmup mile in 11:36, then did 7 quarter-mile intervals with 1/10 mile rests in between and .15 miles cooldown at the end. Best guess, based on eyeballing the pace graph, is that the intervals were all in the 6:30/mile range. Peak heart rates were in the upper 160s and low 170s, lowest during the intervals were in the mid-150s. So, it was a pretty intense workout.

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5 miles at 9:48/mile. Warm-up mile: 10:35, next four were 9:52, 9:32, 9:53, and 9:07. As usual lately, monitor was wildly inaccurate for first mile, so average HR over the next four was around 137, max was probably 145-150. Surprisingly, my legs weren't sore or weary from yesterday's speed workout.

 

For the week I've had 45.5 miles running, my most ever, plus 15 miles on the bike, 20 minutes on the elliptical and a short swim. Hopefully if I can keep at it, I can break 23 minutes in a 5k, but I don't feel like I'm there just yet. Maybe it will happen in the one I'm doing Sept. 11?

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Today: Long run, 13.12 miles (practice half!), 2:07:40, a 9:43 pace. Average HR was 136, max 150, splits were 10:27, 9:57, 9:10, 8:33, 9:12, 9:14, 9:33, 9:51, 10:15, 10:04, 10:21, 9:37, 10:07, and 9:33 for the last .12. My friend Peter showed up at the park for a couple of laps early in the run. It was good to have someone to run with even though it was for a short time. He's a much faster runner than I am (5k times around 18 or 19 minutes)--it's pretty easy to guess which two miles I was running with him!

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